BRARY OF CONGRESS. 



STk 



/??A, 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



SHAKESPEARE'S 



KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 



INTRODUCTION, AND NOTES EXPLANATORY AND CRITICAL. 



FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND FAMILIES. 



Rev. henry N.' HUDSON, 

PROFESSOR OF SHAKESPEARE IN BOSTON UNIVERSITY. 




>^J ^hr^ '" 



BOSTON: 

PUBLISHED BY GINN & HEATH. 
1880. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880, by 

Henry N. Hudson, 
in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



GiNN & Heath: 

J. S, Gushing, Printer, 16 Hawley Street, 

Boston. 



INTRODUCTION. 



History of the Play. 

KING HENRY THE EIGHTH was undoubtedly 
among the latest of the Poet's writing : Mr. Grant 
White thinks it was the very last ; nor am I aware of any 
thing that can be soundly alleged against that opinion. The 
play was never printed till in the folio of 1623. It is first 
heard of in connection with the burning of the Globe theatre, 
on the 29th of June, 1613 : at least I am fully satisfied 
that this is the piece which was on the stage at that time. 
Howes the chronicler, recording the event some time after 
it occurred, speaks of " the house being filled with people to 
behold the play of Henry the Eighth'' And we have a letter 
from Thomas Lorkin to Sir Thomas Puckering, dated 
" London, this last of June," with the following : " No longer 
since than yesterday, while Burbage's company were acting 
at the Globe the play of Henry the Eighth, and there shooting 
off certain chambers in way of triumph, the fire catched, and 
fastened upon the thatch of the house, and there burned so 
furiously, as it consumed the whole Jiouse." But the most 
particular account is in a letter from Sir Henry Wotton to his 
nephew, dated July 2, 1613 : "Now, to let matters of State 
sleep, I will entertain you at the present with what happened 
this week at the Bankside. The King's Players had a new 
play called All is True, representing some principal pieces 
in the reign of Henry the Eighth, which was set forth with 



4 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 

many extraordinary circumstances of pomp and majesty. 
Now King Henry making a masque at the Cardinal Wolsey's 
house, and certain cannons being shot off at his entry, some 
of the paper or other stuff wherewith one of them was stopped 
did Hght on the thatch, where, being thought at first but an 
idle smoke, and their eyes being more attentive to the show, 
it kindled inwardly, and ran round like a train, consuming 
within less than an hour the whole house to the very ground. 
This was tlie fatal period of that virtuous fabric ; wherein yet 
nothing did perish but wood and straw, and a few forsaken 
cloaks." 

Some of the circumstances here specified clearly point to 
the play which has come down to us as Shakespeare's. 
Sir Henry, to be sure, speaks of the piece by the title ^'■All 
is True " ; but the other two authorities describe it as " the 
play of Henry the Eighth.''^ And it is worth noting that 
Lorkin, in stating the cause of the fire, uses the very word, 
chambers, which is used in the original stage-direction of the 
play. So that the discrepancies in regard to the name infer 
no more than that the play then had a double title, as many 
other plays also had. And the name used by Sir Henry is 
unequivocally referred to in the Prologue, the whole argu- 
ment of which turns upon the quality of the piece as being 
ti^ue. Then too the whole play, as regards the kind of in- 
terest sought to be awakened, is strictly correspondent with 
what the Prologue claims in that behalf : a scrupulous fidelity 
to Fact is manifestly the law of the piece ; as if the author 
had here undertaken to set forth a drama made up emphati- 
cally of "chosen truth," insomuch that it might justly bear 
the significant title All is True. 

The piece in performance at the burning of the Globe 
theatre is described by Wotton as a new play ; and it will 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

hardly be questioned that he knew well what he was saying. 
The internal evidence of the piece itself all draws to the 
same conclusion as to the time of writing. In that part of 
Cranmer's prophecy which refers to King James, we have 
these Hues : 

Wherever the bright Sun of heaven shall shine, 
The honour and the greatness of his name 
Shall be, and make new nations : he shall flourish, 
And, like a mountain cedar, reach his branches 
To all the plains about him. 

On a portrait of King James once owned by Lord Bacon, 

the King is styled Imperii Atlantici Conditor. And all 
agree that the first allusion in the Hues just quoted is to the 
founding of the colony in Virginia, the charter of which was 
renewed in 1612, the chief settlement named Jamestown, 
and a lottery opened in aid of the colonists. The last part 
of the quotation probably refers to the marriage of the 
King's daughter Elizabeth with the Elector Palatine, which 
took place in February, 16 13. The marriage was a theme 
of intense joy and high anticipations to the English people, 
as it seemed to knit them up with the Protestant interest of 
Germany ; anticipations destined indeed to a sad reverse in 
the calamities that fell upon the Elector's House. Con- 
current with these notes of seeming allusion to passing 
events, are the style, language, and versification ; in which 
respects it is hardly distinguishable from Coriolanus and the 
other plays known to have been of the Poet's latest period. 

All which considered, I am quite at a loss why so many 
editors and critics should have questioned whether Shake- 
speare's drama were the one in performance at the burning 
of the Globe theatre. They have done this partly under the 
assumption that Shakespeare's play could not have been new 



6 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 

at that time. But I cannot find such assumption at all 
sustained by any arguments they have produced. It is true, 
a piece described as "The Interlude of King Henry the 
Eighth " was entered at the Stationers' in February, 1605. 
There is, however, no good reason for ascribing this piece 
to Shakespeare : on the contrary, there is ample reason for 
supposing it to have been a play by Samuel Rowley, en- 
titled " When you see me you know me, or the famous 
chronicle history of King Henry the Eighth," and pubhshed 
in 1605. 

Some, again, urge that Shakespeare's play must have been 
written before the death of Elizabeth, which was in March, 
1603. This is done on the ground that the Poet would not 
have been likely to glorify her reign so largely after her 
death. And because it is still less likely that during her hfe 
he would have glorified so highly the reign of her successor, 
therefore resort is had to the theory, that in 1613 the play 
was revived under a new title, which led Wotton to think it 
a new play, and that the Prologue was then written, and 
the passage referring to James interpolated. But all this is 
sheer conjecture, and is directly refuted by the Prologue 
itself, which clearly supposes the forthcoming play to be then 
in performance for the first time, and the nature and plan of 
it to be wholly unknown to the audience : to tell the people 
they were not about to hear 

A noise of targets, or to see a fellow 

In a long motley coat guarded with yellow, 

had been flat impertinence in case of a play that had been 
on the stage several years before. As to the passage touch- 
ing James, I can perceive no such signs as have been alleged 
of its being an after-insertion : the awkardness of connection, 



INTRODUCTION. / 

which has been affirmed as betraying a second hand or a 
second time, is altogether imaginary : tlie hnes knit in as 
smoothly and as logically with the context, before and after, 
as any other lines in the speech. 

Nor can I discover any indications of the play's having 
been written with any special thought of pleasing Elizabeth. 
The design, so far as she is concerned, seems much rather 
to have been to please the people, by whom she was all- 
beloved during her life, and, if possible, still more so when, 
after the lapse of a few years, her prudence, her courage, 
and her magnanimity save where her female jealousies were 
touched, had been set off by the blunders and infirmities of 
her successor. For it is well known that the popular feel- 
ing ran back so strongly to her government, that James had 
no way but to fall in with the current, notwithstanding t^e 
strong causes which he had, both public and personal, to 
execrate her memory. The play has an evident making in 
with this feeling, unsolicitous, generally, of what would have 
been likely to make in, and sometimes boldly adventurous 
of what would have been sure to make out, with the object 
of it. Such an appreciative dehneation of the meek and 
honourable sorrows of Catharine, so nobly proud, yet in that 
pride so gentle and true-hearted ; her dignified submission, 
wherein her rights as a woman and a wife are firmly and 
sweetly asserted, yet the sharpest eye cannot detect the least 
swerving from duty ; her brave and eloquent sympathy with 
the plundered people, pleading their cause in the face of 
royal and reverend rapacity, this too with an energetic sim- 
plicity which even the witchcraft of Wolsey's tongue cannot 
sophisticate j and all this set in open contrast with the 
worldly-minded levity, and the equivocal or at least qualified 
virtue, of her rival, and with the headstrong, high-handed. 



8 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 

conscience-shamming selfishness of the King ; — surely the 
Poet must have known a great deal less, or a great deal 
more, than anybody else, of the haughty daughter of that 
rival and that King, to have thought of pleasing her by such 
a representation. 

Historic Basis of the Action. 

The historical matter of the play, so far as relates to the 
fall of Wolsey and the divorce of Catharine, was derived, 
originally, from George Cavendish, who was gentleman-usher 
to the great Cardinal, and himself an eye-witness of much 
that he describes. His Life of Master Wolsey is among the 
best specimens extant of the older English literature ; the 
narrative being set forth in a clear, simple, manly eloquence, 
which the Poet, in some of his finest passages, almost literally 
transcribed. Whether the book had been printed in Shake- 
speare's time, is uncertain ; but so much of it as fell within 
the plot of the drama had been embodied in the chronicles 
of Holinshed and Stowe. In the fifth Act, the incidents, 
and in many cases the very words, are taken from Fox the 
martyrologist, whose Acts and Monumejits of the Churchy 
first published in 1563, had grown to be a very popular book 
in the Poet's time. 

The " fierce vanities " displayed in the Field of the Cloth 
of Gold, with an account of which the play opens, occurred 
in June, 1520, and the death of Buckingham in May, 152 1. 
The court assembled for the divorce began its work on the 
i8th of June, 1529, and was dissolved, without concluding 
any thing, on the 23d of July. On the 17th of October fol- 
lowing, Wolsey resigned the Great Seal, and died on the 29th 
of November, 1530. In July, 15 31, Catharine withdrew 
from the Court, and took up her abode at Ampthill. Long 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

before this time, the King had been trying to persuade Anne 
Boleyn, one of the Queen's Maids of Honour, to be a sort 
of left-hand wife to him ; but an older sister of hers had 
already held that place, and had enough of it : so she was 
resolved to be his right-hand wife or none at all; and, as the 
Queen would not recede from her appeal to the Pope, Anne 
still held off till she should have more assurance of the 
divorce being carried through. In September, 1532, she 
was made Marchioness of Pembroke, and was privately 
married to the King on the 25th of January, 1533. Cranmer 
became Archbishop of Canterbury the next March, and went 
directly about the business of the divorce, which was finished 
on the 24th of May. This was followed, in June, by the 
coronation of the new Queen, and in September by the birth 
and christening of the Princess EHzabeth. Soon after ^ the 
divorce, Catharine removed to Kimbolton, where, in the 
course of the next year, 1534, she had to digest the slaugh- 
ter of her steadfast friends, Fisher and More ; as the peculiar / 
temper of the King, being then without the eloquence of the 
great Cardinal or the virtue of the good Queen to assuage 
it, could no longer be withheld from such repasts of blood. 
Catharine died on the 8th of January, 1536, which was some 
two years and four months after the birth of Elizabeth. The 
play, however, reverses the order of these two events. As for 
the matter of Cranmer and the Privy Council, in Act v., 
this did not take place till 1544, more than eleven years after 
the event with which the play closes. 

Authorship of the Play. 

Dr. Johnson gave it as his opinion that the Prologue and 
Epilogue of this play were not written by Shakespeare. And 
I believe all the critics who have since given any special heed 



lO KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 

to the matter have joined in that opinion. I have not for 
many years had the sHghtest doubt on the subject. And I 
am equally clear in the same opinion touching the Epilogues 
to The Tempest and King He?iry the Fourth, and the 
Chorus to the fourth Act of The Winter'' s Tale. Nor, in- 
deed, does it seem possible that any one having a right 
taste for Shakespeare should judge otherwise, after compar- 
ing those pieces with the Induction to the Second Part of 
Hemy the Fourth, and the Choruses in King Henry the 
Fifth ; all which ring the true Shakespearian gold for work- 
manship in that kind. It was very common for the dramatic 
writers of the time to have such trimmings of their plays done 
by some friend. Who wrote the Prologue and Epilogue to 
Henry the Eighth has been somewhat in question. The well- 
known intimacy and friendship between Jonson and Shake- 
speare have naturally drawn men's thoughts to honest Ben as 
the author of them : but, as the style answers equally well to 
the motions of another hand ; and as we have unquestionable 
marks of another hand in the body of the play ; a conjectural 
ascription of the matter to Jonson is not properly in order. 

It is now, I think, as good as settled that this play was the 
joint production of Shakespeare and John Fletcher ; some- 
what more than half of it belonging to the latter. Dr. John- 
son had the sagacity to observe that the genius of Shake- 
speare comes in and goes out with Catharine ; and that the 
rest of the play might be easily conceived and easily written. 
But this germ of criticism did not grow to any tangible results 
till our own day. As far back, however, as 1850, Mr. James 
Spedding, a critic of approved perspicacity and judgment, 
published an article in The Gentleman's Magazine, discours- 
ing the theme with lucid statement and cogent argument ; 
and all the more satisfactory, that it lands in definite and 



INTRODUCTION. 1 1 

well-braced conclusions. On the appearance of this article, 
Mr. Samuel Hickson, another discriminating and judicious 
critic, put forth a brief paper in Notes and Queries, express- 
ing an entire concurrence with Mr. Spedding, and also saying 
that he had reached the same conclusion three or four years 
before ; this too without having any communication with him, 
or any knowledge of him, even of his name ; but that the 
want of a favourable opportunity had kept him from making 
his thoughts known. Nor was this a mere general con- 
currence : it was an entire agreement in the details, and ex- 
tending even to the assignment of scenes and parts of scenes 
to their respective authors. Still more recently, Mr. F. G. 
Fleay has brought his metrical tests and his figures to bear 
upon the question ; and the result is a full confirmation 
both of the general and the particular conclusions reached 
by the two other gentlemen. 

Of course the evidence on which this judgment proceeds 
is altogether internal, as the play has come down to us with- 
out any outside tokens or suggestions of another hand than 
Shakespeare's in the making of it. And the most striking 
and available parts of that evidence, though not the strongest, 
have reference to the qualities of style and versification. But 
Fletcher's peculiarities in this point are so strongly marked ; 
rather say, he has an habitual mannerism of diction and 
metre so pronounced ; that no one thoroughly at home in 
his acknowledged workmanship can easily fail to taste his 
presence in whatever he wrote : and, as certain portions of 
the play in hand have the full measure of his idiom in those 
respects, so it is nowise strange that several critics, once 
started on the track, should all tie up in the same result. 

For my own part, I have slowly and reluctantly grown, or 
been drawn, into the same upshot with the writers named, 



12 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 

and am now thoroughly satisfied that the conclusion they 
have reached is substantially right. The details of this con- 
clusion are as follows: — That the first and second scenes 
of Act i. are Shakespeare's ; also the third and fourth scenes 
of Act ii. ; also about three sevenths of the second scene in 
Act iii., down to the King's parting from Wolsey with the 
words, " and then to breakfast with what appetite you have " ; 
also the first scene of Act v. : and that all the rest of the 
play is Fletcher's ; namely, the third and fourth scenes of 
Act i., the first and second of Act ii., the first, and about four 
sevenths of the second in Act iii., the whole of Act iv., the 
second, third, and fourth of Act v., also the Prologue and 
Epilogue. Mr. Fleay makes the whole number of blank- 
verse lines in the play to be 2613, of which 1467 are Fletch- 
er's, thus leaving only 1146 to Shakespeare. 

From the forecited distribution I see no reason to dissent, 
except that, as Mr. Spedding admits, some of the portions 
assigned to Fletcher have traces of a superior workman. In 
particular, the latter part of the second scene in Act iii., all 
after the exit of the King, seems to me a mixture of Fletcher 
and Shakespeare : though the Fletcher element prepon- 
derates, still I feel some decided workings of the master- 
hand. The same, though in a somewhat less degree, of the 
coronation scene, the first in Act iv. Certainly, if Fletcher 
wrote the whole of these, he must have been, for the time, 
surprised out of himself, and lifted quite above his ordinary 
plane ; even the best that he does elsewhere giving no 
promise of such touches as we find here. On the other 
hand, I doubt whether the first scene of Act v. be pure 
Shakespeare : at all events, it seems by no means equal to 
his other portions of the play. And, as the two authors 
probably wrote in conjunction, it might well be that some 



INTRODUCTION, 1 3 

whole scenes were done by each, while in others their hands 
worked together, or the one revised and finished what the 
other had first written ; thus giving us choice bits of Shake- 
spearian gold mingled with the Fletcherian silver. 

Mr. Spedding's essay is so fine a piece of criticism in 
itself, so calm and just in temper, and withal cuts so near the 
heart of the subject, that I cannot well resist the impulse to 
reproduce a considerable portion of it. After a clear state- 
ment of his conclusion, together with the grounds of it, he 
proceeds as follows : 

The opening of the play — the conversation between Bucking- 
ham, Norfolk, and Abergavenny — seemed to have the full stamp 
of Shakespeare, in his latest manner : the same close-packed 
expression ; the same life, and reality, and freshness ; the same 
rapid and abrupt turnings of thought, so quick that language* can 
hardly follow fast enough ; the same impatient activity of intel- 
lect and fancy, which, having once disclosed an idea, cannot 
wait to work it orderly out ; the same daring confidence in the 
resources of language, which plunges headlong into a sentence 
without knowing how it is to come forth ; the same careless 
metre which disdains to produce its harmonious eifects by the 
ordinary devices, yet is evidently subject to a master of harmony ; 
the same entire freedom from book-language and commonplace ; 
all the qualities, in short, which distinguish the magical hand 
which has never yet been successfully imitated. 

In the scene in the Council-chamber which follows, where the 
characters of Catharine and Wolsey are brought out, I found the 
same characteristics equally strong. 

But the instant I entered upon the third scene, in which 
the Lord Chamberlain, Lord Sands, and Lovell converse, I was 
conscious of a total change. I felt as if I had passed suddenly 
out of the language of nature into the language of the stage, or of 
some conventional mode of conversation. The structure of the 
verse was quite different, and full of mannerism. The expression 



14 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 

became suddenly diffuse and languid. The wit wanted mirth 
and character. And all this was equally true of the supper- 
scene which closes the first Act. 

The second Act brought me back to the tragic vein, but it was 
not the tragic vein of Shakespeare. When I compared the 
eager, impetuous, and fiery language of Buckingham in the 
first Act with the languid 'and measured cadences of his farewell 
speech, I felt that the difference was too great to be accounted 
for by the mere change of situation, without supposing also a 
change of writers . The presence of death produces great changes 
in men, but no such change as we have here. 

When, in like manner, I compared the Henry and Wolsey of 
the scene which follows with the Henry and Wolsey of the Coun- 
cil-chamber, Iperceived a difference scarcely less striking. The 
dialogue, through the whole scene, sounded still slow and arti- 
ficial. 

The next scene brought another sudden change. And, as in 
passing from the second to the third scene of the first Act, I had 
seemed to be passing all at once out of the language of nature 
into that of convention ; so, in passing from the second to the 
third scene of the second Act, (in which Anne Boleyn appears, I 
may say for the first time, for in the supper-scene she was merely 
a conventional court lady without any character at all,) I seemed 
to pass not less suddenly from convention back again into nature. 
And, when I considered that this short and otherwise insignifi- 
cant passage contains all that we ever see of Anne, and yet how 
clearly the character comes out, how very a woman she is, and 
yet how distinguishable from any other individual woman, I had 
no difficulty in acknowledging that the sketch came from the 
same hand which drew Perdita. 

Next follows the famous trial-scene. And here I could as little 
doubt that I recognized the same hand to which we owe the trial 
of Hermione. When I compared the language of Henry and of 
Wolsey throughout this scene to the end of the Act, with their 
language in the Council-chamber, (Act i, scene 2,) I found that 
it corresponded in all essential features : when I compared it 



INTRODUCTION. 1 5 

with their language in the second scene of the second Act, I 
perceived that it was altogether different. Catharine also, as she 
appears in this scene, was exactly the same person as she was in 
the Council-chamber; but, when I went on to the first scene of 
the third Act, which represents her interview with Wolsey and 
Campeius, I found her as much changed as Buckingham was 
after his sentence, though without any alteration of circum- 
stances to account for an alteration of temper. Indeed the 
whole of this scene seemed to have all the peculiarities of 
Fletcher, both in conception, language, and versification, with- 
out a single feature that reminded me of Shakespeare ; and, 
since in both passages the true narrative of Cavendish is followed 
minutely and carefully, and both are therefore copies from the 
same original and in the same style of art, it was the more easy 
to compare them with each other. 

In the next scene, (Act iii. scene 2,) I seemed again to get 
out of Fletcher into Shakespeare ; though probably not into 
Shakespeare pure; a scene by another hand perhaps, which 
Shakespeare had only remodelled, or a scene by Shakespeare 
which another hand had worked upon to make it fit the place. 
The speeches interchanged between Henry and Wolsey seemed 
to be entirely Shakespeare's ; but, in the altercation between 
Wolsey and the lords which follows, I could recognize little or 
nothing of his peculiar manner, while many passages were 
strongly marked with the favourite Fletcherian cadence : and as 
for the famous "Farewell, a long farewell," &c., though asso- 
ciated by means oi Enfield'' s Speaker with my earliest notions of 
Shakespeare, it appeared (now that my mind was opened to 
entertain the doubt) to belong entirely and unquestionably to 
Fletcher. 

Of the fourth Act I did not so well know what to think. For 
the most part it seemed to bear evidence of a more vigorous 
hand than Fletcher's, with less of mannerism, especially in the 
description of the coronation, and the character of Wolsey ; and 
yet it had not to my mind the freshness and originality of Shake- 
speare. It was pathetic and graceful, but one could see how it 



l6 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 

was done. Catharine's last speeches, however, smacked strongly 
again of Fletcher. And, all together, it seemed to me that, if 
this Act had occurred in one of the plays written by Beaumont 
and Fletcher in conjunction, it would probably have been thought 
that both of them had a hand in it. 

The first scene of the fifth Act, and the opening of the second, 
I should again have confidently ascribed to Shakespeare, were it 
not that the whole passage seemed so strangely out of place. I 
could only suppose that the task of putting the whole together 
had been left to an inferior hand ; in which case I should con- 
sider this to be a genuine piece of Shakespeare's work, spoiled 
by being introduced where it has no business. In the execution 
of the christening-scene, on the other hand, (in spite again of the 
earliest and strongest associations,) I could see no evidence of 
Shakespeare's hand at all ; while in point of design it seemed 
inconceivable that a judgment like his could have been content 
with a conclusion so little in harmony with the prevailing spirit 
and purpose of the piece. 

As regards the point of diction and metre, the argument 
turns very much upon the use of verses with a redundant' 
syllable at the end, or what are commonly called lines with 
double endings, but what I sometimes designate as lines 
with amphibractic endings. This, at all events, is the 
handiest, and perhaps the most telling, item to be urged 
in illustration of the point. And here it will not be out 
of place to observe that Shakespeare's regular verse is the 
iambic pentameter. This, however, he continually diversi- 
fies with metrical irregularities, introducing trochees, spon- 
dees, anapests, dibrachs, tribrachs, and sometimes dactyls, in 
various parts of his lines. But his most frequent irregularity 
is by ending his verses with amphibrachs ; and this occurs 
much oftener in his later plays than in his earlier ; and in 
some of his plays, as in the Shakespeare portions of the 



INTRODUCTION. 1/ 

one nov/ in hand, we have about one third of the Hnes 
ending with amphibrachs. The purpose of this is, to prevent 
or avoid monotony ; just as great composers enrich and 
deepen their harmonies by a skilful use of discords. Now . 
Fletcher's use of this irregularity is far more frequent than 
Shakespeare's : commonly not less than two thirds of his 
lines, and often a larger proportion, having amphibractic 
endings. So excessive is this, usage with him, that, besides 
rendering the movement of his verse comparatively feeble 
and languid, it becomes a very emphatic mannerism : in fact, 
it just works the irregularity itself into a new monotony, 
and a monotony of the most soporific kind. For nothing 
has so much the effect of a wearisome sameness as a con- 
tinual or too frequent recurrence of the same variation : 
even the studied and uniform regularity, or what Cowper 
terms "the creamy smoothness," of Pope's versification is 
less monotonous to the ear, than such an over-use of one 
and the same mode of diversity. And this, together with 
certain other traits of style and diction not easy to describe, 
imparts to Fletcher's verse a very pecuHar and rather heavy 
swing and cadence, often amounting to downright sing-song 
and humdrum. Many times, in reading him, I have, almost 
before I knew it, caught my thoughts drowsing off into a 
half-somnolent state, from this constant and uniform oscilla- 
tion, so to speak, of his language and metre. Vastly differ- 
ent is all this in Shakespeare ; whose metrical irregularities 
are always so ordered as to have the effect of jogging the 
attention into alertness and keeping it freshly awake. 

To make the point clear to the apprehension of average 
readers, I will jnext produce several of Fletcher's best and 
most characteristic passages ; enough to give a full and fair 
taste of his habitual manner. The first is from The Knight 



l8 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 

of Malta, ii. 5, where Oriana, the heroine, being falsely 
accused of crime, and sentenced to die, unless a champion 
appear and vindicate her honour in single combat, makes 
the following speech as she goes up to the scaffold : 

Thus I ascend ; nearer, I hope, to Heaven ! 

Nor do I fear to tread this dark black mansion, 

The image of my grave : each foot we move 

Goes to it still, each hour we leave behind us 

Knolls sadly toward it. — My noble brother, — 

For yet mine innocence dares call you so, — 

And you the friends to virtue, that come hither, 

The chorus to this tragic scene, behold me. 

Behold me with your justice, not with pity, 

(My cause was ne'er so poor to ask compassion,) 

Behold me in this spotless white I wear. 

The emblem of my life, of all my actions ; 

So ye shall find my story, though I perish. 

Behold me in my sex : I am no soldier ; 

Tender and full of fears our blushing sex is, 

Unharden'd with relentless thoughts ; unhatcht 

With blood and bloody practice : alas, we tremble 

But when an angry dream afflicts our fancies ; 

Die with a tale well told. Had I been practised, 

And known the way of mischief, travell'd in it. 

And given my blood and honour up to reach it ; 

Forgot religion, and the line I sprung on ; 

O Heaven ! I had been fit then for Thy justice. 

And then in black, as dark as Hell, I had howl'd here. 

Last, in your own opinions weigh mine innocence : 

Amongst ye I was planted from an infant, 

(Would then, if Heaven had so been pleased, I had perish'd !) 

Grew up, and goodly, ready to bear fruit. 

The honourable fruit of marriage : 

And am I blasted in my bud with treason? 

Boldly and basely of my fair name ravish'd, 

And hither brought to find my rest in ruin? 

But He that knows all, He that rights all wrongs. 

And in His time restores, knows me ! — ■ I've spoken. 

The next is the main part of two speeches made by 



INTRODUCTION. I9 

Caesar, with Pompey's lifeless head before him, in The 
False One, ii. i : 

Thou glory of the world once, now the pity, 

Thou awe of nations, wherefore didst thou fall thus? 

What poor fate follow'd thee, and pluck'd thee on, 

To trust thy sacred life to an Egyptian? 

The light and life of Rome to a blind stranger, 

That honourable war ne'er taught a nobleness, 

Nor worthy circumstance shew'd what a man was? 

That never heard thy name sung but in banquets. 

And loose lascivious pleasures? to a boy, 

That had no faith to comprehend thy greatness. 

No study of thy life, to know thy goodness? 

And leave thy nation, nay, thy noble friend. 

Leave him distrusted, that in tears falls with thee. 

In soft relenting tears? Hear me, great Pompey ; 

If thy great spirit can hear, I must task thee ! 

Thou hast most unnobly robb'd me of my victory, # 

My love and mercy. 

Ptol. Hear me, great Caesar ! 

Ccssar. I have heard too much : 

And study not with smooth shows to invade 
My noble mind, as you have done my conquest. 
You're poor and open : I must tell you roundly. 
That man that could not recompense the benefits. 
The great and bounteous services, of Pompey, 
Can never dote upon the name of Csesar. 
Though I had hated Pompey, and allow'd his ruin, 
I gave you no commission to perform it : 
Hasty to please in blood are seldom trusty ; 
And, but I stand environ'd with my victories, 
My fortune never failing to befriend me, 
My noble strengths and friends about my person, 
I durst not try you, nor expect a courtesy 
Above the pious love you shew'd to Pompey. 
You've found me merciful in arguing with ye : 
Swords, hangmen, fires, destructions of all natures, 
Demolishments of kingdoms, and whole ruins, 
Are wont to be my orators. Turn to tears, 



20 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 

You wretched and poor seeds of sun-burnt Egypt ; 
And, now you've found the nature of a conqueror 
That you cannot decline, with all your flatteries ; 
That, where the day gives light, will be himself still ; 
Know how to meet his worth with humane courtesies ! 
Go, and embalm those bones of that great soldier ; 
Howl round about his pile, fling on your spices, 
Make a Sabaean bed.'and place this phoenix 
Where the hot Sun may emulate his virtues. 
And draw another Pompey from his ashes, 
Divinely great, and fix him 'mongst the Worthies? 

The following is one of Lisander's speeches in The Lover's 
Progress, ii. 3 : 

Can Heaven be pleased with these things? 
To see two hearts that have been twined together, 
Married in friendship, to the world two wonders, 
Of one growth, of one nourishment, one health, 
Thus mortally divorced for one weak woman? 
Can Love be pleased? Love is a gentle spirit; 
The wirxd that blows the April flowers not softer : 
She's drawn with doves, to show her peacefulness : 
Lions and bloody pards are Mars's servants. 
Would you serve Love? do it with humbleness. 
Without a noise, with still prayers and soft murmurs : 
Upon her altars offer your obedience. 
And not your brawls ; she's won with tears, not terrors : 
That fire you kindle to her deity. 
Is only grateful when it's blown with sighs, 
And holy incense flung with white-hand innocence : 
You wound her now ; you are too superstitious : 
No sacrifice of blood or death she longs for. 

I add another characteristic strain from the same playj 
iv. 4 : 

Lisander. V the depth of meditation, do you not 
Sometimes think of Olinda? 

Lidian. I endeavour 

To raze her from my memory, as I wish 
You would do the whole sex ; for know, Lisander, 
I The greatest curse brave man can labour under 



INTRODUCTION. 21 

Is the strong witchcraft of a woman's eyes. ,' 
Where I find men, I preach this doctrine to 'em : 
As you're a scholar, knowledge make your mistress, 
The hidden beauties of the Heavens your study ; 
There shall you find fit wonder for your faith. 
And for your eye inimitable objects : 
As you're a profess'd soldier, court your honour ; 
Though she be stern, she's honest, a brave mistress ! 
The greater danger you oppose to win her, 
She shows the sweeter, and rewards the nobler : 
Woman's best loves to hers mere shadows be ; 
For after death she weds your memory. 
These are my contemplations. 

In the foregoing extracts we have 114 complete lines, of 
which 79 end with amphibrachs, thus leaving 35 with iambic 
endings ; a proportion of something more than two to one. 
Cranmer's long speech at the close of the play in hand 
contains 49 lines, of which 34 have amphibractic endings, 
and 15 iambic; also a proportion of somewhat more than 
two to one. The average proportion in Buckingham's three 
speeches on going to his execution is about the same ; and 
so through all the Fletcherian portions of the play. Besides 
this most obvious feature, Fletcher has another trick of 
mannerism, frequently repeating a thought, or fraction of a 
thought, with some variation of language ; which imparts 
a very un-Shakespearian diffuseness to his style, as of an 
author much more fluent and fertile in words than in matter. 
This trait also is repeatedly exemplified in the forecited 
passages : so that, by comparing those passages with the 
parts of the play ascribed to Fletcher, any one having an 
eye and an ear for such things can easily identify the two 
as proceeding from one and the same source. 

But the play has another very striking and decided char- 
acteristic which I was for a long time quite unable to account 



22 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 

for. The structure and ordering of the piece as a whole is 
very unHke Shakespeare's usual workmanship, especially that 
of his closing period. Coleridge aptly notes it as " a sort of 
historical masque or show-play " ; for so, to be sure, it has 
several masque-like scenes, that interrupt the proper dra- 
matic continuity ; as the 'supper-scene at Wolsey's house, i. 
4, and the scene of the coronation, iv. i. In other words, 
the piece is far from evincing great skill or judgment in the 
high point of dramatic architecture. ^ Judged by the standard 
of Shakespeare's other plays, it is by no means a well organ- 
ized specimen. We can trace in it no presiding idea, no 
governing thought. Though some of the parts are noble in 
themselves, still they have no clear principle of concert and 
unity, no right artistic centre : they rather give the impres- 
sion of having been put together arbitrarily, and not under 
any organic law. The various threads of interest do not 
pull together, nor show any clear intelligence of each other ; 
the whole thus seeming rather a mechanical juxtaposition of 
parts than a vital concrescence. In short, the current both 
of dramatic and of historic interest is repeatedly broken and 
disordered by misplaced and premature semi-catastrophes, 
which do not help each other at all ; instead of flowing on 
with continuous and increasing volume to the one proper 
catastrophe. The matter is well stated by Gervinus : " The 
interest first clings to Buckingham and his designs against 
Wolsey, but with the second Act he leaves the stage ; then 
Wolsey draws the attention increasingly, and he too disappears 
in the third Act ; meanwhile our sympathies are drawn more 
and more to Catharine, who also leaves the stage in the 
fourth Act : then, after being thus shattered through four 
Acts by circumstances of a tragic character, we have the 
fifth Act closing with a merry festivity, for which we are not 



INTRODUCTION. 2$ 

prepared, and crowning the King's base passion with victory, 
in which we take no warm interest." 

By way of accounting for all this, I probably cannot do 
better than to quote again from Mr. Spedding, who discourses 
the point as follows : 

It was not unusual in those days, when a play was wanted in a 
hurry, to set two or three or even four hands at work upon it ; 
and the occasion of the Princess Elizabeth's marriage may very 
likely have suggested the production of a play representing the 
marriage of Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn. Such an occasion 
would sufficiently account for the determination to treat the sub- 
ject not tragically ; the necessity for producing it immediately 
might lead to the employment of several hands ; and thence 
would follow inequality of workmanship and imperfect adaptation 
of the several parts to each other. But this would not explain 
the incoherency and inconsistency of the main design. Had 
Shakespeare been employed to make a design for a play which 
was to end with the happy marriage of Henry and Anne Boleyn, 
we may be sure that he would not have occupied us through the 
first four Acts with a tragic and absorbing interest in the 
decline and death of Queen Catharine, and through half the 
fifth with a quarrel between Cranmer and Gardiner, in which we 
have no interest. 

On the other hand, since it is by Shakespeare that all the prin- 
cipal matters and characters are introduced, it is not likely that 
the general design of the piece would be laid out by another. I 
should rather conjecture that he had conceived the idea of a 
great historical drama on the subject of Henry VIII. which would 
have included the divorce of Catharine, the fall of Wolsey, the 
rise of Cranmer, the coronation of Anne Boleyn, and the final 
separation of the English from the Romish Church, which, being 
the one great historical event of the reign, would naturally be 
chosen as the focus of poetic interest ; that he had proceeded in the 
execution of this idea as far perhaps as the third Act, which might 



24 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 

have included the establishment of Cranmer in the seat of highest 
ecclesiastical authority ; when, finding that his fellows of the 
Globe were in distress for a new play to honour the marriage of 
the Lady Elizabeth with, he thought that his half-finished work 
might help them, and accordingly handed them his manuscript 
to make what they could of it ; that they put it into the hands of 
Fletcher, (already in high repute as a popular and expeditious 
playwright,) who, finding the original design not very suitable 
to the occasion and utterly beyond his capacity, expanded the 
three Acts into five, by interspersing scenes of show and mag- 
nificence, and passages of description, and long poetical conver- 
sations, in which his strength lay; dropped all allusion to the 
great ecclesiastical revolution, which he could not manage and 
for which he had no materials supplied him ; converted what 
should have been the middle into the end ; and so turned out a 
splendid " historical masque, or shew-play," which was no doubt 
very popular then, as it has been ever since. 

Ecclesiastical Leanings. 

It is a question of no little interest, how far and in what 
sort the authors of this play stand committed to the Refor- 
mation ; if at all, whether more as a religious or as a national 
movement. They certainly show a good mind towards Cran- 
mer; but nothing can be justly argued from this, for they 
show the same quite as much towards Catharine ; and the 
King's real motives for putting her away are made plain 
enough. There are however several expressions, especially 
that in Cranmer's prophecy touching Ehzabeth, — "In her 
days God shall be truly known," — which indicate pretty 
clearly how the authors regarded the great ecclesiastical 
question of the time ; though it may be fairly urged that in 
all these cases they do but make the persons speak char- 
acteristically, without practising any ventriloquism about them. 



INTRODUCTION. 25 

Not that I have any doubt as to their being what would now 
be called Protestants. That they were truly such, is quite 
evident, I think, in the general complexion of the piece, 
which, by the way, is the only one of Shakespeare's plays 
where this issue enters into the structure and life of the 
work. Surely no men otherwise minded would have selected 
and ordered the materials of a drama so clearly with a view 
to celebrate Elizabeth's reign, all the main features of which 
were identified with the Protestant interest by foes as well 
as friends. But, whether the authors were made such more 
by religious or by national sympathies, is another question, 
and one not to be decided so easily. For the honour and inde- 
pendence of England were then so bound up with that cause, 
that Shakespeare's sound English heart, and the strong current 
of patriotic sentiment that flowed through his veins, were enoug*h 
of themselves to secure it his cordial adhesion. That there was, 
practically, no breath for the stout nationality of old England 
but in the atmosphere of the Reformation, left no choice to 
stich a thoroughgoing Englishman as he everywhere approves 
himself. All which sets off the more clearly his judicial 
calmness in giving to the characters severally their due, and 
in letting them speak out freely and in their own way the 
mind that is within them. That, in his view, they could best 
serve his ends by being true to themselves, is sufficient proof 
that his ends were right. 

Political and Social Characteristics. 

The social and civil climate of England as shown in this 
piece is very different from that in the other plays of the his- 
toric series. A new order of things has evidently sprung up 
and got firm roothold in the land. Nor have we far to seek 
for the causes of this. All through the time of Henry the 



26 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 

Eighth, owing to the long frenzy of civil slaughter which had 
lately possessed the nation, the Enghsh people were in 
nervous dread of a disputed succession. In the course of 
that frenzy, the old overgrown nobility became greatly re- 
duced in numbers and crippled in strength, so as to be no 
longer an effective check upon the constitutional head of the 
State. The natural effect was to draw the throne into much 
closer sympathy with the people at large : the King had to 
throw himself more and more upon the commons ; which of 
course brought on a proportionable growth of this interest. 
So, in these scenes, we find the commons highly charged 
with a sense of their rising strength, and the rulers, from the 
King downwards, quailing before their determined voice. 
The best chance of power and consequence is felt to be by 
"gaining the love of the commonalty." On the other hand, 
the people, being thus for the first time brought into direct 
intercourse with the throne, and being elated with the novelty 
of having the King with them, become highly enthusiastic in 
his cause ; they warm up intensely towards his person, and 
are indeed the most obsequious of all orders to any stretches 
of prerogative that he may venture in their name ; the growth 
of his power being felt by them as the growth of their own. 
So that this state of things had the effect for a while of greatly 
enchancing the power of the crown. Henry the Eighth was 
almost if not altogether autocratic in his rule. Both he and 
Elizabeth made themselves directly responsible to the people, 
and the people in turn made them all but irresponsible. 

Nor do the signs of a general transition-process stop here. 
Corresponding changes in ideas and manners are going on. 
Under the long madness of domestic butchery, the rage for 
war had in all classes thoroughly spent itself. Military skill 
and service is no longer the chief, much less the only path 



INTRODUCTION. 2/ 

to preferment and power. Another order of abilities has 
come forward, and made its way to the highest places of 
honour and trust. The custom is gradually working in of 
governing more by wisdom, and less by force. The arts of 
war are yielding the chief seat to the arts of peace : learning, 
eloquence, civic accomplishment, are disputing precedence 
with hereditary claims : even the highest noblemen are get- 
ting ambitious of shining in the new walks of honour, and of 
planting other titles to nobility than birth and family and 
warlike renown ; insomuch that the princely Buckingham, 
graced as he is with civil abilities, and highly as he values 
himself upon them, complains that "a beggar's book out- 
worths a noble's blood." 

This new order of things has its crowning exponent in 
Wolsey, whose towering greatness in the State is because 4ie 
really leads the age in the faculties and resources of solid 
statesmanship. But his rapid growth of power and honour 
not only turns his own head, but provokes the envy and 
hatred of the old nobility, whose untamed pride of blood 
naturally resents his ostentatious pride of merit. And he has 
withal in large measure the overgrown upstart's arrogance 
towards both the class from which he sprang and the class 
into which he has made his way. Next to Wolsey, the King 
himself, besides having strong natural parts, was the most 
accomplished man in the same arts, and probably the ablest 
statesman that England had in his time. But his nature was 
essentially coarse, hard, and sinister; his refinement was 
but skin-deep, and without any roothold in his heart ; and, 
from the causes already noted, his native infirmities got 
pampered into the ruffianism, at once cold and boisterous, 
which won him the popular designation of " bluff King Hal," 
and which is artfully disguised indeed by the authors, yet 
not so but that we feel its presence more than enough. 



28 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 

General Notes of Characterization. 

I have already observed how the interest of this play is 
broken and scattered by incoherences of design and execution. 
The interest, however, of the several portions is deep and gen- 
uine while it lasts ; at least, till we come to the fifth Act. We 
are carried through a series of sudden and most afflicting 
reverses. One after another, the mighty are broken and the 
lofty laid low ; their prosperity being strained to a high pitch, 
as if on purpose to deepen their plunge, just when they have 
reached the summit, with their hearts built up and settled to 
the height of their rising, and when the revolving wheel of 
time seems fast locked with themselves at the top. 

First, we have Buckingham in the full-blown pride of rank 
and talents. He is wise in counsel, rich in culture and ac- 
complishment, of captivating deportment, learned and elo- 
quent in discourse. A too self-flattering sense of his strength 
and importance has made him insolent and presumptuous ; 
and his self-control has failed from the very elevation that 
rendered it most needful to him. In case of Henry's dying 
without issue, he was the next male heir to the throne in the 
Beaufort branch of the Lancastrian House. So he plays with 
aspiring thoughts, and practises the arts of popularity, and 
calls in the aid of fortune-tellers to feed his ambitious 
schemes, and at the same time by his haughty bearing stings 
the haughtiness of Wolsey, and sets that wary, piercing eye 
in quest of matter against him. Thus he puts forth those 
leaves of hope which, as they express the worst parts of 
himself, naturally provoke the worst parts of others, and so 
invite danger while blinding him to its approach; till at 
length all things within and around are made ripe for his 
upsetting and ruin; and, while he is exultingly spreading 



INTRODUCTION. 29 

snares for the Cardinal, he is himself caught and crushed 
with the strong toils of that master-hand. 

Next, we have the patient and saintly Catharine sitting in 
state with the King, all that she would ask being granted ere 
she asks it; sharing half his power, and appearing most 
worthy of it when most free to use it. She sees blessings 
flowing from her hand to the people, and the honour and 
happiness of the nation reviving as she pleads for them ; and 
her state seems secure, because it stands on nothing but 
virtue, and she seeks, nothing but the good of all within her 
reach. Yet even now the King is cherishing in secret the 
passion that has already supplanted her from his heart, and 
his sinister craft is plotting the means of divorcing her from 
his side, and at the same time weaving about her such a net 
of intrigue as may render her very strength and beauty pf 
character powerless in her behalf; so that before she feels 
the meditated wrong all chance of redress is foreclosed, and 
she is left with no defence but the sacredness of her sorrows. 

Then we have the overgreat Cardinal, who, in his pleni- 
tude of inward forces, has cut his way and carried himself 
upward over whatever offered to stop him. He walks most 
securely when dangers are thickest about him ; and is sure 
to make his purpose so long as there is any thing to hinder 
him ; because he has the gift of turning all that would thwart 
him into the ministry of a new strength. His cunning hand 
quietly gathers in the elements of power, because he best 
knows how to use it, and wherein the secret of it hes : he 
has the King for his pupil and dependant because his magic 
of tongue is never at a loss for just the right word at just 
the right time. By his wisdom and eloquence he assuages 
Henry's lawless tempers, and charms his headstrong caprice 
into prudent and prosperous courses, and thus gets the keep- 



30 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 

ing of his will. That he can always sweeten the devil out of 
the King, and hold him to the right, is hardly to be sup- 
posed ; but even when such is not the case he still holds the 
King to him by his executive ability and art in putting the 
wrong smoothly through. His very power, however, of ris- 
ing against all opposers -serves, apparently, but to aggravate 
and assure his fall, when there is no further height for him 
to climb; and at last, through his own mere oversight and 
oblivion; he loses all, from his having no more to gain. 

Yet in all these cases, inasmuch as the persons have their 
strength inherent, and not adventitious, therefore they carry 
it with them in their reverses ; or rather, in seeming to lose 
it, they augment it. For it is then seen, as it could not be 
before, that the greatness which was in their circumstances 
served to obscure that which was in themselves. Bucking- 
ham is something more and better than the gifted and ac- 
complished nobleman, when he stands before us unpropped 
and simply as " poor Edward Bohun " ; his innate nobility 
being then set free, and his mind falling back upon its naked 
self for the making good his title to respect. Wolsey, also, 
towers far above the all-performing and all-powerful Cardinal 
and Chancellor who " bore his blushing honours thick upon 
him," when, stripped of every thing that fortune and favour 
can give or take away, he bestows his great mind in parting 
counsel upon Cromwell; when he comes, "an old man 
broken with the storms of State," to beg "a little earth for 
charity"; and when he has really "felt himself, and found 
the blessedness of being little." 

Nor is the change in our feelings towards these men, after 
their fall, merely an effect passing within ourselves : it pro- 
ceeds in part upon a real disclosure of something in them 
that was before hidden beneath the superinducings of place 



INTRODUCTION. 3 1 

and circumstance. Their nobler and better qualities shine 
out afresh when they are brought low, so that from their fall 
we learn the true causes of their rising. And because this 
real and true exaltation springs up naturally in consequence 
of their fall, therefore it is that from their ruins the authors 
build " such noble scenes as draw the eye to flow." 

Character of Wolsey. 

Wolsey is indeed a superb delineation, strong, subtile, com- 
prehensive, and profound. All the way from his magnificent 
arrogance at the start to his penetrating and persuasive wis- 
dom on quitting the scene, the space is rich with deep and 
telling lines of character. The corrupting influences of place 
and power have stimulated the worser elements of his nature 
into an usurped predominance : pride, ambition, duplicity, 
insolence, vindictiveness, a passion for intriguing and circum- 
venting arts, a wilful and elaborate stifling of conscience and 
pity, confidence in his potency of speech making him reck- 
less of truth and contemptuous of simplicity and purity, 
— these are the faults, all of gigantic stature, that have got 
possession of him. When the reverse, so sudden and deci- 
sive, overtakes him, its first effect is to render him more 
truthful. In the great scene, iii. 2, where Norfolk, Suffolk, 
and Surrey so remorselessly hunt him down with charges and 
reproaches, his conscience is quickly stung into resurgence ; 
with clear eye he begins to see, in their malice and their ill- 
mannered exultation at his fall, a reflection of his own moral 
features, and with keen pangs of remorse he forthwith goes 
to searching and hating and despising in himself the things 
that show so hateful and so mean in his enemies ; and their 
envenomed taunts have the effect rather of composing his 



32 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 

mind than of irritating it. To be sure, he at first stings back 
again ; but in his upworkings of anger his long-dormant hon- 
esty is soon awakened, and this presently calms him. 

His repentance, withal, is hearty and genuine, and not a 
mere exercise in self-cozenage, or a fit of self-commiseration : 
as he takes all his healthy vigour and clearness of under- 
standing into the process, so he is carried through a real 
renovation of the heart and rejuvenescence jDf the soul : 
his former sensibility of principle, his early faith in truth 
and right, which had been drugged to sleep with the high- 
whines of state and pomp, revive ; and with the solid sense 
and refreshment of having triumphed over his faults and 
put down his baser self, his self-respect returns ; and he 
now feels himself stronger with the world against him than 
he had been with the world at his beck. As the first prac- 
tical fruit of all this, and the best proof of his earnestness 
in it, he turns away his selfishness, and becomes generous, 
preferring another's welfare and happiness to his own : for 
so he bids Cromwell fly from him, and bestow his services 
where the benefits thereof will fall to the doer; whereas a 
selfish man in such a case would most of all repine at losing 
the aid and comfort of a cherished and trusted servant. 
Finally, in his parting counsel to Cromwell, there is a home- 
felt calmness and energy of. truth, such as assures us that the 
noble thoughts and purposes, the deep religious wisdom, 
which launched him, and for some time kept with him, in 
his great career, have been reborn within him, and are far 
sweeter to his taste than they were before he had made 
trial of their contraries. No man could speak such words 
as the following, unless his whole soul were in them : 

Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition : 
By that sin fell the angels ; how can man, then, 



INTRODUCTION. 33 

The image of his Maker, hope to win by't? 

Love thyself last ; cherish those hearts that hate thee : 

Corruption wins not more than honesty. 

Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace, 

To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not : 

Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's, 

Thy God's, and truth's : then if thou fall'st, O Cromwell, 

Thou fall'st a blessed martyr. 



Queen Catharine. 

The delineation of Catharine differs from the two fore- 
going, in that she maintains the same simple, austere, and 
solid sweetness of mind and manners through all the 
changes of fortune. Yet she, too, rises by her humiliation, 
and is made perfect by suffering, if not in herself, at least 
to us ; for it gives her full sway over those deeper sym- 
pathies which are necessary to a just appreciation of the 
profound and venerable beauty of her character. She is 
mild, meek, and discreet ; and the harmonious blending of 
these qualities with her high Castilian pride gives her a very 
peculiar charm. Therewithal she is plain in mind and 
person ; has neither great nor brilHant parts ; and of this 
she is fully aware, for she knows herself thoroughly : but she 
is nevertheless truly great, — and this is the one truth about 
her which she does not know, — from the symmetry and 
composure wherein all the elements of her being stand and 
move together : so that she presents a remarkable instance 
of greatness in the whole, with the absence of it in the parts. 
How clear and exact her judgment and discrimination ! yet 
we scarce know whence it comes, or how. From the first 
broaching of the divorce, she knows the thing is all a fore- 
gone conclusion with the King ; she is also in full possession 
of the secret why it is so : she feels her utter helpless- 



34 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 

ness, being, as she is, in a land of strangers, with a ca- 
pricious tyrant for the party against her, so that no man will 
dare to befriend her cause with honest heartiness ; that no 
trial there to be had can be any thing but a mockery of 
justice, for the sole purpose will be to find arguments in 
support of what is predetermined, and to set a face of truth 
on a body of falsehood i she has no way therefore but to 
take care of her own cause ; her only help lies in being true 
to herself; and indeed the modest, gentle, dignified wisdom 
with which she schools herself to meet the crisis is worth a 
thousand-fold more than all the defences that any learning 
and ingenuity and eloquence could frame in her behalf. 

Her power over our better feelings is in no small degree 
owing to the impression we take, that she sees through her 
husband perfectly, yet never in the least betrays to him, and 
hardly owns to herself, what mean and hateful qualities she 
knows or feels to be in him. It is not possible to over-state 
her simple artlessness of mind ; while nevertheless her sim- 
plicity is of such a texture as to be an overmatch for all the 
unscrupulous wiles by which she is beset. Her betrayers, 
with all their mazy craft, can neither keep from her the secret 
of their thoughts nor turn her knowledge of it into any blem- 
ish of her innocence ; nor is she less brave to face their pur- 
pose than penetrating to discover it. And when her resolu- 
tion is fixed, that " nothing but death shall e'er divorce her 
dignities," it is not, and we feel it is not, that she holds the 
accidents of her position for one iota more than they are 
worth ; but that these are to her the necessary symbols of 
her honour as a wife, and the inseparable garments of her 
delicacy as a woman ; and as such they have so grown in 
with her life, that she cannot survive the parting with them ; 
to say nothing of how they are bound up with her sentiments 



INTRODUCTION. 35 

of duty, of ancestral reverence, and of self-respect. More- 
over many hard, hard trials have made her conscious of her 
sterling virtue : she has borne too much, and borne it too 
well, to be ignorant of what she is and how much better things 
she has deserved ; she knows, as she alone can know, that 
patience has had its perfect work with her : and this knowl- 
edge of her soHd and true worth, so sorely tried, so fully 
proved, enhances to her sense the insult and wrong that are 
put upon her, making them eat hke rust into her soul. ■ 

One instance deserves special noting, where, by the pecu- 
liar use of a single word, the authors well illustrate how Cath- 
arine '^ guides her words with discretion," and at the same 
time make her suggest the long, hard trial of temper and 
judgment which she has undergone. It is in her dialogue 
with the two Cardinals, when they visit her at Bridewell : 

Bring me a constant woman to her husband, » 

One that ne'er dream'd a joy beyond his pleasure ; 
And to that woman, when she has done most, 
Yet will I add an honour, — a great patience. 

How much more is here understood than is expressed ! 
By the cautious and well-guarded but pregnant hint con- 
veyed in the last three words, the mind is thrown back upon 
the long course of trials she has suffered, and still kept her 
suffering secret, lest the knowledge thereof should defeat the 
cherished hope of her heart ; with what considerate forbear- 
ance and reserve she has struggled against the worst parts of 
her husband's character ; how she has wisely ignored his sins 
against herself, that so she might still keep alive in him a 
seed of grace and principle of betterment ; thus endeavour- 
ing by conscientious art to make the best out of his strong 
but hard and selfish nature. Yet all this is so intimated as 
not to compromise at all the apprehensive delicacy which 
befits her relation to him, and belongs to her character. 



36 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 

The scope of this suggestion is well shown by a passage 
in the Life of Wolsey, referring to things that took place 
some time before the divorce was openly mooted. The 
writer is speaking of Anne Boleyn : " After she knew the 
King's pleasure and the bottom of his secret stomach, then 
she began to look very haughty and stout, lacking no man- 
ner of jewels and rich 'apparel that might be gotten for 
money. It was therefore judged by-and-by through the 
Court of every man, that she being in such favour might 
work masteries with the King, and obtain any suit of him 
for her friend. All this while, it is no doubt but good Queen 
Catharine, having this gentlewoman daily attending upon 
her, both heard by report and saw with her eyes how it 
framed against her good ladyship : although she showed 
neither unto Mistress Anne Boleyn nor unto the King any 
kind or spark of grudge or displeasure ; but accepted all 
things in good part, and with wisdom and great patience 
dissembled the same, having Mistress Anne in more estima- 
tion, for the King's sake, than she was before." 

Catharine in her seclusion, and discrowned of all but her 
honour and her sorrow, is one of the authors' noblest and 
sweetest deliverances. She there leads a life of homely sim- 
plicity. Always beautiful on the throne, in her humiliation 
she is more beautiful still. She carries to the place no 
grudge or resentment or bitterness towards any ; nothing 
but faith, hope, and charity ; a touching example of womanly 
virtue and gentleness ; hourly in Heaven for her enemies ; 
her heart garrisoned with " the peace that passeth all 
understanding." Candid and plain herself, she loves and 
honours plainness and candour in others ; and it seems a 
positive relief to her to hear the best spoken that can be of 
the fallen great man who did more than all the rest to 



INTRODUCTION. 3/ 

work her fall. Her calling the messenger "a saucy fellow," 
who breaks in so abruptly upon her, discloses just enough 
of human weakness to make us feel that she is not quite 
an angel yet ; and in her death-scene we have the divinest 
notes of a " soul by resignation sanctified." 

Delineation of Henry. 

The portrait of the King, all the circumstances considered 
in which it was drawn, is a very remarkable piece of work, 
being no less true to the original than poHtic as regards the 
authors : for the cause which Henry had been made to serve, 
though against his will, and from the very rampancy of his 
vices, had rendered it a long and hard process for the na- 
tion to see him as he was. The authors keep the worst parts 
of his character mainly in the background, veiling them 
withal so adroitly and so transparently as to suggest them 
to all who are wilhng to see them : in other words, they do 
not directly expose or affirm his moral hatefulness, but 
place it silently in facts, and so make him characterize 
himself in a way to be felt : nay, they even make the other 
persons speak good things of him, but at the same time let 
him refute and reprove their words by his deeds. At all 
events, the man's hard-hearted and despotic capriciousness 
is brought to points of easy inference ; yet the matter is 
carried by the authors with such an air of simplicity as if they 
were hardly aware of it ; though, when one of the persons 
is made to say of Henry, " His conscience has crept too 
near another lady," it is manifest that the authors under- 
stood his character perfectly. His little traditional pecu- 
liarities of manner, which would be ridiculous, but that his 
freaky fierceness of temper renders them dreadful j and his 



38 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 

mixture of hypocrisy and fanaticism, which endeavours to 
misderive his bad passions from Divine sources, and in the 
strength of which he is enabled to beheve a He, even while 
he knows it to be a lie, and because he wishes it true ; — all 
these things are shown up, without malice indeed, but with- 
out mercy too. — Such and so great is the psychagogic re- 
finement displayed in this delineation. 

In the whole matter of the divorce, Henry is felt to be 
acting from motives which he does not avow : already pos- 
sessed with a criminal passion for which he is lawlessly bent 
on making a way, he still wants to think he has strong pub- 
lic reasons for the measure, and that religion and conscience 
are his leading inducements; and he shows much cunning 
and ability in pressing these considerations into view : but 
it is plain enough that he rather tries to persuade himself 
they are true than really believes them to be so ; though 
there is no telling how far, in this effort to hide the real 
cause from the world, he may strangle the sense of it in his 
own breast. All this, however, rather heightens the mean- 
ness than relieves the wickedness of his course. The power 
or the poison of self-deceit can indeed work wonders ; and 
in such cases it is often extremely difficult to judge whether 
a man is wilfully deceiving others or unconsciously deceiv- 
ing himself : in fact, the two often slide into each other, so 
as to compound a sort of honest hypocrisy, or a state be- 
tween belief and not-belief: but Henry wilfully embraces 
and hugs and holds fast the deceit, and rolls all arguments 
for it as sweet morsels under his tongue, because it offers a 
free course for his carnal-mindedness and raging self-will. 
But the history of his reign after the intellect of Wolsey 
and the virtue of Catharine were removed is the best com- 
mentary on the motives that swayed him at this time ; and 
there I must leave him. 



INTRODUCTION. 39 

Characteristics of Anne. 

In the brief delineation of Anne Boleyn there is gathered 
up the essence of a long story. She is regarded much less 
for what she is in herself than for the gem that is to proceed 
from her ; and her character is a good deal screened by the 
purpose of her introduction, though not so much but that it 
peeps significantly through. With httle in her of a positive 
nature one way or the other; with hardly any legitimate 
object-matter of respect or confidence, she appears notwith- 
standing a rather amiable person ; possessed with a girlish 
fancy and hankering for the vanities and glitterings of state, 
but having no sense of its duties and dignities. She has a 
kindly heart, but is so void of womanly principle and deli- 
cacy as to be from the first evidently elated by those roy«al 
benevolences which to any just sensibility of honour would 
minister nothing but humiliation and shame. She has a real 
and true pity for the good Queen, which however goes alto- 
gether on false grounds ; and she betrays by the very terms 
of it an eager and uneasy longing after what she scarcely 
more fears than hopes the Queen is about to lose. As for 
the true grounds and sources of Catharine's noble sorrow, 
she strikes vastly below these, and this in such a way as to 
indicate an utter inability to reach or conceive them. Thus 
the effect of her presence is to set off and enhance that deep 
and solid character of whose soul truth is not so much a 
quality as the very substance and essential form ; and who, 
from the serene and steady light thence shining within her, 
much rather than from acuteness or strength of intellect, is 
enabled to detect the duplicity and serpentine pohcy which 
are playing their engines about her. For this thorough in- 
tegrity of heart, this perfect truth in the inward parts, is as 



40 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 

hard to be deceived as it is incapable of deceiving. I can 
well imagine that, with those of the audience who had 
any knowledge in English history, ■ — and many of them 
no doubt had much, — the dehneation of Anne, broken off 
as it . is at the height of her fortune, must have sent their 
thoughts forward to reflect how the self-same levity of char- 
acter, which lifted her into Catharine's place, soon afterwards 
drew upon herself a far more sudden and terrible reverse. 
And indeed some such thing may be needful, to excuse the 
authors for not carrying out the truth of history from seed- 
time to harvest, or at least indicating the consummation of 
that whereof they so faithfully unfold the beginnings. 

The moral effect of this play as a whole is very impres- 
sive and very just. And the lesson evolved, so far as it 
admits of general statement, may be said to stand in showing 
how sorrow makes sacred the wearer, and how, to our hu- 
man feelings, suffering, if borne with true dignity and 
strength of soul, covers a multitude of sins ; or, to carry 
out the point with more special reference to Catharine, it 
consists, as Mrs. Jameson observes, in illustrating how, by 
the union of perfect truth with entire benevolence of char- 
acter, a queen, and a heroine of tragedy, though " stripped 
of all the pomp of place and circumstance," and without 
any of "the usual sources of poetical interest, as youth, 
beauty, grace, fancy, commanding intellect, could depend 
on the moral principle alone to touch the very springs of 
feeling in our bosoms, and melt and elevate our hearts 
through the purest and holiest impulses." 



KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



King Henry the Eighth. 
Thomas Wolsey, Cardinal. 
Campeius, Cardinal, and Legate. 
CaPUCIUS, Ambassador from the 

Emperor Charles V. 
Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of 

Canterbury. 
Howard, Duke of Norfolk. 
Stafford, Duke of Buckingham. 
Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. 
Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey. 
Lord Chamberlain; 
Lord Chancellor. 
Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester. 
Longland, Bishop of Lincoln. 
Neville, Lord Abergavenny. 
William Lord Sands. 
Sir Henry Guildford. 
Sir Thomas Lovell. 
Sir i\NTHONY Denny. 

Several Bishops, Lords, and Ladies in 
on the Queen ; Scribes, Officers 



Sir Nicholas Vaux. 

Cromwell, Servant to Wolsey. 

Griffith, Gentleman - Usher to 
Queen Catharine. 

Butts, Physician to the King. 

Secretaries to Wolsey. Garter, King- 
at-Arms. 

Surveyor to Buckingham. 

Brandon, and a Sergeant-at-Arms. 

Door-Keeper of the Council-Cham- 
ber. A Crier. 

Page to Gardiner. 

A Porter, and his Man. 

Catharine of Arragon, Wife to 
King Henry. 

Anne Boleyn, her Maid of Honour. 

An old Lady, Friend to Anne Boleyn. 

Patience, Woman to Queen Cath- 
arine. 

the Dumb-Shows ; Women attending 
, Guards, and other Attendants. 



Scene. — Chiefly in London and Westminster ; once at Ki7nbolton. 



PROLOGUE. 

I come no more to make you laugh : things now, 
That bear a weighty and a serious brow, 
Sad, high, and working, full of state and woe. 



42 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. PROLOGUE. 

Such noble scenes as draw the eye to flow, 

We now present. Those that can pity, here 

May, if they think it well, let fall a tear ; 

The subject will deserve it. Such as give 

Their money out of hope they may believe, 

May here find truth too. Those that come to see 

Only a show or two, and so agree 

The play may pass, if they be still and willing, 

I'll undertake may see away their shilling 

Richly in two short hours. Only they 

That come to hear a merry bawdy play, 

A noise of targets, or to see a fellow 

In a long motley coat guarded ^ with yellow, 

Will be deceived ; for, gentle hearers, know, 

To rank our chosen truth with such a show 

As Fool and fight is, besides forfeiting 

Our own brains, and th' opinion that we bring 

Or make, — that only truth we now intend, — 

Will leave us ne'er an understanding friend.^ 

Therefore, for goodness' sake, and as you're known 

The first and happiest^ hearers of the town. 

Be sad, as we would make ye : think ye see 

The very persons of our history 



1 This long motley coat was the usual badge dress of the professional 
Fool. — Guarded is, faced or trimmed. See The Merchant, page iii, note 30. 

2 This seems to imply a reference to what, as shown in the preface, there 
is good reason for thinking to have been originally the first title of the play. 
For by advertising the play under the title All is True the authors would 
naturally beget an opinion or expectation of truth in what was to be shown ; 
which opinion or expectation would be forfeited or destroyed by the course 
in question. 

3 Happy is here used for propitious, or favourable, which is one of the 
senses of the corresponding Latin yNOxdifelix. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 43 

As they were living ; think you see them great, 
And follow'd with the general throng and sweat 
Of thousand friends ; then, in a moment, see 
How soon this mightiness meets misery : 
And, if you can be merry then, I'll say 
A man may weep upon his wedding-day. 



ACT I. 

Scene I. — London. An Ante-chamber in the Palace. 

Enter, on one side, the Duke of Norfolk ; on the other, the 
Duke ^Buckingham and the Lord Abergavenny.^ ♦ 

Buck. Good morrow, and well met. How have ye done 
Since last we saw ^ in France ? 

1 Thomas Hov/ard, the present Duke of Norfolk, is the same person who 
figures as Earl of Surrey in Kiitg Richard III. His father's rank and titles, 
having been lost by the part he took with Richard, were restored to him by 
Henry VIII. in 1514, soon after his great victory over the Scots at Flodden. 
His wife was Anne, third daughter of Edward IV., and so, of course, aunt 
to the King. He died in 1525, and was succeeded by his son Thomas, Earl 
of Surrey. The Poet, however, continues them as duke and earl to the end 
of the play ; at least he does not distinguish between them and their suc- 
cessors.— Edward Stafford, the Buckingham of this play, was son to Henry, 
the Buckingham oi King Richard III. The father's titles and estates, hav- 
ing been declared forfeit and confiscate by Richard, were restored to the 
son by Henry VII. in the first year of his reign, 1485. In descent, in wealth, 
and in personal gifts, the latter was the most illustrious nobleman in the 
Court of Henry VIII. In the record of his arraignment and trial he is 
termed, says Holinshed, " the fioure and mirror of all courtesie." His oldest 
daughter, Elizabeth, was married to the Earl of Surrey ; Mary, his youngest, 
to George Neville, Lord Abergavenny. 

2 That is, " since last we saw each other," or met. So in Cymbeline, i. i : 



44 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT I. 

Nor. I thank your Grace, 

Healthful ; and ever since a fresh admirer 
Of what I saw there. 

Buck. An untimely ague 

Stay'd me a prisoner in my chamber, when 
Those suns of glory, those two lights of men, 
Met in the vale of Andren. 

Nor. 'Twixt Guines and Arde.^ 

I was then present, saw them salute on horseback ; 
Beheld them, when they 'lighted, how they clung 
In their embracement, as ^ they grew together ; 
Which had they, what fo ur thr oned onesjcould have weigh'd 
Such a compounded one ? 

Buck. All the whole time 

I was my chamber's prisoner. 

Nor. . Then you lost 

The view of earthly glory : men might say. 
Till this time pomp was single, but now married 
To one above itself. Each following day 
Became the last day's master, till the next 
Made former wonders its : ^ to-day, the French, 
All clinquant,^ all in gold, like heathen gods, 

"When shall we see again?" — "How have ye done?" answers precisely 
to our phrase, " How have you beeii ?" though we still say, " How do you 
do ? •' 

3 Guynes and Arde are the names of two towns in Picardy, where the 
English and French respectively set up their tents and pavilions. Andren 
is the name of a valley between them, where the two Kings met. 

4 As for as if; a common usage. 

5 Its for its own. Each later day mastered, that is, surpassed or outdid, 
the one before it, and was itself in turn outdone by the next day ; which 
next seemed to carry in its hand the splendours of all the days preceding. 

6 Clinquant is commonly explained here as meaning glitteri7tg, shining. 
Richardson says it is used " for ihe Jingling noise of the ornaments " ; which 
is certainly the usual sense of the word. 



SCENE I. 



KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 45 



Shone down the Enghsh ; and, to-morrow, they 

Made Britain India ; every man that stood 

Show'd hke a mine. Their dwarfish pages were 

As cherubins, all gilt : the madams too, 

Not used to toil, did almost sweat to bear 

The pride upon them, that"^ their very labour 

Was to them as a painting : now this masque 

Was cried imcomparable ; and th' ensuing night 

Made it a fool and beggar. The two Kings, 

Equal in lustre, were now best, now worst, 

As presence did present them ; him in eye, 

Still him in praise : and, being present both, 

'Twas said they saw but one ; and no discerner 

Durs wag his tongue in censure.^ When these suns — 

For so they phrase 'em — by their heralds challenged 

The noble spirits to arms, they did perform 

Beyond thought's compass ; that former fabulous story, 

Being now seen possible enough, got credit. 

That Bevis ^ was believed. 

Buck. O, you go far. 

Nor. As I belong to worship,- and affect 
In honour honesty, the tract ^^ of every thing 

7 That for so that or insomuch that; a very frequent usage. — Of course 
the meaning of what follows is, that their labour put colour into their cheeks. 
— Pride, here, is splendour of dress or adornment. 

8 No discriminating observer durst express an opinion as to which made 
the finest appearance. This use of censure occurs often. 

9 The old romantic legend of Bevis of Hampton. This Bevis, a Saxon, 
was for his prowess created Earl of Southampton by William the Conqueror. 

10 Tract here has the sense, apparently, of course, process, or trace. 
Johnson explains the passage thus : " The course of these triumphs and 
pleasures, however well related, must lose in the description part of the 
spirit and energy which were expressed in the real action." — To "belong 
to worship " was to be in the rank of gentleman, or of the gentry. So " your 



46 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT I. 

Would by a good discourse! lose some life, 
Which action's self was tongue to. All was royal j 
To the disposing of it nought rebell'd ; 
Order gave each thing view ; the office did 
Distinctly his full function. 

BucJz. ' Who did guide, 

I mean, who set the body and the limbs 
Of this great sport together, as you guess ? 

Nor.' One, certes, that promises no elemental 
In such a business. 

Buck. I pray you, who, my lord? 

Nor. All this was order'd by the good discretion 
Of the right-reverend Cardinal of York. 

Buck. The Devil speed him ! no man's pie is freed 
From his ambitious finger. What had he 
To do in these fierce ^^ vanities? I wonder 
That such a keech ^^ can with his very bulk 

Worship " was a common title of deference, though not so high as " your 
Honour." — To aj^eci a thing, as the word is here used, is to crave or desire 
it, to aspire to it, to have a passion for it. 

11 Element here is commonly explained to mean the first principles or 
rudiments of knowledge. Is it not rather used in the same sense as when 
we say of any one, that he is out of his element ? From Wolsey's calling, 
they would no more think he could be at home in such matters, than a fish 
could swim in the air, or a bird fly in the water. — Certes, meaning certainly, 
is here a monosyllable. In some other places the Poet uses it as a dissyl- 
lable. 

12 This use o{ fierce in the sense of excessive, or nearly that, is common 
in the old writers, and is sometimes met with in those of later date. Shake- 
speare has it repeatedly. So in Cymbeline, v. 5 : " This fierce abridgement 
hath to it circumstantial branches, which distinction should be rich in." 
Also in Hamlet, i. i : " And even the like precurse oi fierce events." 

13 A round lump of fat. It has been thought that there was some allu- 
sion here to the Cardinal's being reputed the son of a butcher. We have 
" Goodwife Keech, the butcher's wife," mentioned by Dame Quickly in 2 
Henry IV., ii. i. — In the next line, beneficial is used for beneficent. Walker 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 4/ 

Take up the rays o' the beneficial Sun, 
And keep it from the Earth. 

Nor. Surely, sir. 

There's in him stuff that puts him to these ends ; 
For, being not propp'd by ancestry, whose grace 
Chalks successors their way ; nor call'd upon 
For high feats done to th' crown ; neither allied 
To eminent assistants ; but, spider-like, 
Out of s self-drawing v/eb, he gives us note 
The force of his own merit makes his way ; 
A gift that Heaven gives ; which buys for him 
A place next to the King. 

Aber. I cannot tell 

What Heaven hath given him, — let some graver eye 
Pierce into that ; but I can see his pride , 

Peep through each part of him : whence has he that ? 
If not from Hell, the Devil is a niggard ; 
Or has given all before, and he begins 
A new hell in himself. 

Bttck. Why the Devil, 

Upon this French going-out, took he upon him. 
Without the privity o' the King, t' appoint 
Who should attend on him ? He makes up the file 
Of all the gentry ; !■* for the most part such 
To whom as great a charge as little honour 
He meant to lay upon ; i^ and his own letter, 

notes upon it thus : " It is to be observed that the words benefit and benefi- 
cial, in our old writers, almost uniformly involve the idea of a beiiefiacto}-, 
which has since been dropped, except in cases where the context implies 
that idea, e.g., conferring or receiving a benefit!' 

14 Theyf/^ is the list, roll, or schedule. 

15 This use of to and zipon may be merely a doubling of prepositions, 
such as occurs repeatedly in Shakespeare ; but is, more likely, an instance 



48 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT I. 

The honourable board of Council out, 
Must fetch him in he papers.!^ 

Aber. I do know- 

Kinsmen of mine, three at the least, that have 
By this so sicken'd their estates, that never 
They shall abound as formerly. 

Buck. O, many 

Have broke their backs with laying manors on 'em 
For this great journey. ^"^ What did this vanity 
But minister communication of 
A most poor issue ? ^^ 

Nor. Grievingly I think, 

The peace between the French and us not values 
The cost that did conclude it. 

Buck. Every man. 

After the hideous storm that follow'd, was 
A thing inspired ; and, not consulting, broke 
Into a general prophecy, that this tempest, 

of pretty bold ellipsis ; the sense being, " To whom he gave as great a charge 
as he meant to lay upon them little honour." 

16 His own letter, by his own single authority, and without the concur- 
rence of the Council, must fetch him in whom he papers down. Wolsey 
drew up a list of the several persons whom he had appointed to attend on 
the King at this interview, and addressed his letters to them, 

1'^ " In the interview at Andren," says Lingard, " not only the two kings, 
but also their attendants, sought to surpass each other in the magnificence 
of their dress, and the display of their riches. Of the French nobility it was 
said that many carried their whole estates on their backs : among the English 
the Duke of Buckingham ventured to express his marked disapprobation 
of a visit which had led to so much useless expense." 

18 That is, serve for the reporting or proclaiming of a paltry, worthless 
result ; somewhat like the homely phrase, " Great cry, and little wool." 
Staunton, however, explains it thus : " But furnish discourse on the poverty 
of its result. Comiminication in the sense of talk or discourse is found re- 
peatedly in the writers of Shakespeare's time." 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 49 

Dashing the garment of this peace, aboded 
Tlie sudden breach on't.^^ 

Nor. Which is budded out ; 

For France hath flaw'd the league, and hath attach'd 
Our merchants' goods at Bourdeaux. 

Abef. Is it therefore 

Th' ambassador is silenced ? ^o 

Nor. Marry, is't. 

Aber. A proper title of a peace \ 21 and purchased 
At a superfluous rate ! 

Buck. Why, all this business 

Our reverend Cardinal carried. 

Nor. Like't your Grace,22 

The State takes notice of the private difference 
Betwixt you and the Cardinal. I advise you, — 
And take it from a heart that wishes towards you 
Honour and plenteous safety, — that you read 
The Cardinal's malice and his potency 
Together ; to consider further, that 
What his high hatred would effect wants not 
A minister in his power. You know his nature. 
That he's revengeful ; and I know his sword 
Hath a sharp edge : it's long, and, 't may be said. 
It reaches far ; and where 'twill not extend. 
Thither he darts it. Bosom up my counsel, 

19 So in Holinshed : " On Mondaie the eighteenth of June was such an 
hideotis storme of winde and weather, that manie conjectured it did prog- 
nosticate trouble and hatred shortUe after to follow betweene princes." — 
Aboded \s foreboded ox prognosticated. 

"^^ Silenced in his official capacity ; that is, refused a hearing. 

21 " A fine thing indeed, to be honoured with the title or name of a peace ! " 

22 ''Please it your Grace," or, "May it please your Grace." This use of 
the verb to like occurs very often in Elizabethan English. 



50 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT I. 

You'll find it wholesome. Lo, where comes that rock 
That I advise your shunning. 

Enter Cardinal Wolsey, the purse borne before him ; certain 
of the Guard, and two Secretaries with papers. The Car- 
dinal in his passage fixes his eye on Buckingham, and 
Buckingham on him, both full of disdain. 

Wol. The Duke of Buckingham's surveyor, ha? 
Where's his examination ? 

I Seer. Here, so please you. 

Wol. Is he in person ready ? 

./ Seer. Ay, please your Grace. 

Wol. Well, we shall then know more ; and Buckingham 
Shall lessen this big look. \_Exeunt Wolsey and Train, 

Buck. This butcher's cur^^ is venom-mouth'd, and I 
Have not the power to muzzle him ; therefore best 
Not wake him in his slumber. I A beggar's book 
Outworths a noble's blood.^^ \ 

Nor. What, are you chafed? 

23 There was a tradition that Wolsey was the son of a butcher. But his 
father, as hath been ascertained from his will, was a burgess of considerable 
wealth, having " lands and tenements in Ipswich, and free and bond lands 
in Stoke " ; which, at that time, would hardly consist with such a trade. 
Holinshed, however, says, " This Thomas Wolsie was a poore tnan's sojtne 
of Ipswich, and there born, and, being but a child, verie apt to be learned : 
by his parents he was conveied to the universitie of Oxenford, where he 
shortlie prospered so in learning, as he was made bachellor of art when he 
passed not fifteen years of age, and was called most commonlie thorough 
the universitie the boie bachellor." 

24 It was natural at that time that Buckingham, though himself a man of 
large and liberal attainments, should speak with disdain of learned poverty 
in comparison with noble blood. Book is here put for learning. So in 2 
Henry VI., iv. 7 : " Because my book preferred me to the King" ; preferred 
in its old sense of recommended. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 5 1 

Ask God for temperance ; ^^ that's th' appliance only 
Which your disease requires. 

Buck. I read in's looks 

Matter against me j and his eye reviled 
Me, as his abject object : at this instant 
He bores me with some trick : ^^ he's gone to th' King ; 
I'll follow, and outstare him. 

Nor. Stay, my lord, 

And let your reason with your choler question 
What 'tis you go about :/ to climb steep hills 
Requires slow pace at first); anger is like 
A full-hot horse, who being allow'd his way, 
Self-mettle tires him. Not a man in England 
Can advise me like you : be to yourself 
As you would to your friend. ■ » 

Buck. I'll to the King ; 

And from a mouth of honour quite cry down 
This Ipswich fellow's insolence ; or proclaim 
There's difference in no persons. 

Nor. Be advised ; ^"^ 

Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot 
That it do singe yourself : we may outrun. 
By violent swiftness, that which we run at. 
And lose by over-running. Know you not, 
The fire that mounts the liquor till't run o'er. 
In seeming to augment it wastes it ? Be advised : 
I say again, there is no English soul 

25 Temperance in the classical sense of moderation, self-command, or 
self-restraint. Repeatedly so. 

26 Meaning, " he stabs or wounds me by some' artifice." 

27 Be advised is bethink yourself, that is, use your judgment, or be con- 
siderate. Often so. 



52 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT I. 

More stronger to direct you than yourself, 
If with the sap of reason you would quench, 
Or but allay, the fire of passion. 

Buck, Sir, • 

I'm thankful to you ; and I'll go along 
By your prescription l but this top-proud ^^ fellow, — 
Whom from the flow of gall I name not, but 
From sincere motions,^^ — by intelligence. 
And- proofs as clear as founts in July, when 
We see each grain of gravel, I do know 
To be corrupt and treasonous. 

Nor. Say not, treasonous. 

Buck. To th' King I'll say't; and make my vouch as 
strong 
As shore of rock. Attend. This holy fox. 
Or wolf, or both, — for he is equal ravenous 
As he is subtle, and as prone to mischief 
As able to perform't ; his mind and place 
Infecting one another, yea, reciprocally, — 
Only to show his pomp as well in France 
As here at home, suggests ^^ the King our master 
To this last costly treaty, th' interview. 
That swallow'd so much treasure, and like a glass 
Did break i' the rinsing. 

Nor. Faith, and so it did. 

Buck. Pray, give me favour, sir. This cunning Cardinal 
The articles o' the combination drew 
As himself pleased ; and they were ratified 

28 Top-proud is superlatively proud, or over-topping all others in pride 
So the Poet often uses the verb to top for to suj-pass. 

29 " Whom I speak of, not in malice, but from just and candid motives." 

30 To prompt, to move, to incite are among the old senses of to suggest. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 53 

As he cried, Thus let be : to as much end 

As give a crutch to th' dead : but our Court-Cardinal 

Has done this, and 'tis well ; for Worthy Wolsey, 

Who cannot err, he did it. Now this follows, — 

Which, as I take it, is a kind of puppy 

To th' old dam, treason, — Charles the Emperor, 

Under pretence to see the Queen his aunt, 

(For 'twas indeed his colour, but he came 

To whisper Wolsey,) here makes visitation : 

His fears were, that the interview betwixt 

England and France might, through their amity. 

Breed him some prejudice ; for from this league 

Peep'd harms that menaced him : he privily 

Deals with our Cardinal ; and, as I trow, — 

Which I do well ; for, I am sure, the Emperor , 

Paid ere he promised ; whereby his suit was granted 

Ere it was ask'd ; — but, when the way was made, 

And paved with gold, the Emperor then desired 

That he would please to alter the King's course. 

And break the foresaid peace. Let the King know — 

As soon he shall by me — that thus the Cardinal 

Does buy and sell his honour as he pleases, 

And for his own advantage. 

Nor. I am sorry 

To hear this of him ; and could wish he were 
Something mistaken ^^ in't. 

Buck. No, not a syllable : 

I do pronounce him in that very shape 
He shall appear in proof. 



31 Not that he had made a mistake, but that others mistook, or were 
mistaken, in regard to him ; misunderstood. 



54 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT I, 

Enter Brandon, a Sergeant-at-arms before him, and two or 
three of the Guard. 

Bran. Your office, sergeant ; execute it. 

Serg. Sir, 

My lord the Duke of Buckingham and Earl 
Of Hereford, Stafford, and Northampton, I 
Arrest thee of high treason, in the name 
Of our most sovereign King. 

Buck. Lo, you, my lord, 

The net has fall'n upon me ! I shall perish 
Under device and practice. 

Bran. I am sorry. 

To see ^^ you ta'en from liberty, to look on 
The business present : 'tis his Highness' pleasure 
You shall to th' Tower. 

Buck. It will help me nothing 

To plead mine innocence ; for that dye is on me 
Which makes my whitest part black. The will of Heaven 
Be done in this and all things ! I obey. — 
O my Lord Aberga'ny, fare you well ! 

Bran. Nay, he must bear you company. — \To Aberga- 
venny.] The King 
Is pleased you shall to th' Tower, till you know 
How he determines further. 

Aber. As the duke said. 

The will of Heaven be done, and the King's pleasure 

32 An obscure passage ; but to see is an instance of the infinitive used 
gerundively. So that the meaning comes something thus : "/« seeing you 
deprived of freedom, I regret to be present on this occasion " ; or, as Staun- 
ton words it, " I am sorry, since it is to see you deprived of liberty, that I am 
a witness of this business." See Hamlet, page 169, note i. — The arrest of 
Buckingham took place April 16, 1521. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 55 

By me obey'd ! 

Bran. Here is a warrant from 

The King t' attach Lord Montacute j -^^ and the bodies 
Of the duke's confessor, John de la Car, 
And Gilbert Peck, his chancellor, — 

Buck. So, so ; 

These are the limbs o' the plot : no more, I hope. 

Bran. — A monk o' the Chartreux. 

Buck. O, Nicholas Hopkins? 

B?'an. He. 

Buck. My surveyor is false j the o'er-great Cardinal 
Hath show'd him gold ; my life is spann'd ^'^ already : 
I am the shadow of poor Buckingham, 
Whose figure even this instant cloud puts out 
By darkening my clear sun.^^ — My lord, farewell. \_Exeunt. 

33 This was Henry Pole, grandson to George Duke of Clarence, and 
eldest brother to Cardinal Pole. He had married Lord Abergavenny's 
daughter. Though restored to favour at this juncture, he was executed for 
another alleged treason in this reign. 

34 Is measured, the end of it determined. Man's life is said in Scripture 
to be but a span long. 

35 " Stripped of my titles and possessions, I am but the shadow of what 
I was ; and even this poor figure or shadow a cloud this very instant puts 
out, reduces to nothing, by darkening my son of life." — Instayit is passing 
or present. We have a like expression in Greene's Dorastus and Fawnia, 
upon which The Winter's Tale was partly founded : " Fortune, envious of 
such happie successe, turned her wheele, and darkened their bright sunne 
of prosperitie with the mistie clouds of mishap and miserie." 



$6 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT I. 

Scene II. — TJie Same. TJie Council- Chamber. 

Cornets. Enter King Henry, Cardinal Wolsey, the Lords 
of the Cotmcil, Sir Thomas Lovell, Officers, and Atten- 
dants. The King enters leaning on the Cardinal's shoul- 
der. 

King. My life itself, and the best heart of it, 
Thanks you for this great care : I stood i' the level 
Of a fall-charged confederacy, and give thanks 
To you that choked it. — Let be call'd before us 
That gentleman of Buckingham's : in person 
I'll hear him his confessions justify ; 
And point by point the treasons of his master 
He shall again relate. 

\The King takes his state. The Lords of the Council 
take their several places. The Cardinal places 
himself under the King's j^d"/, on his right side. 

A Noise within, crying Room for the Queen ! Enter Queen 
Catharine, ushered by the Dukes of Norfolk and Suf- 
folk : she kneels. The King rises f'om his state ^ takes 
her up, kisses and places her by his side. 

Cath. Nay, we must longer kneel : I am a suitor. 

King. Arise, and take place by us : half your suit 
Never name to us ; you have half our power : 
The other moiety, ere you ask, is given ; 
Repeat your will, and take it. 

Cath. " Thank your Majesty. 

That you would love yourself, and in that love 
Not unconsider'd leave your honour, nor 
The dignity of your office, is the point 
Of my petition. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 5/ 

King. Lady mine, proceed. 

Cath, I am solicited, not by a few. 
And those of true condition,^ that your subjects 
Are in great grievance : there have been commissions 
Sent down among 'em, which have flaw'd the heart 
Of all their loyalties : — wherein, although. 
My good Lord Cardinal, they vent reproaches 
Most bitterly on you, as putter-on ^ 
Of these exactions, yet the King our master, — 
Whose honour Heaven shield from soil ! — even he escapes 

not 
Language unmannerly, yea, such which breaks 
The sides of loyalty, and almost appears 
In loud rebellion. 

Nor. Not almost appears, — 

It doth appear ; for, upon these taxations, 
The clothiers all, not able to maintain 
The many to them 'longing, have put off 
The spinsters, carders, fullers, weavers, who, 
Unfit for other life, compell'd by hunger 
And lack of other means, in desperate manner 
Daring th' event to th' teeth, are all in uproar, 
And danger serves among them. 

King. Taxation ! 

Wherein ? and what taxation ? — My Lord Cardinal, 
You that are blamed for it alike with us, 
Know you of this taxation ? 

Wol. Please you, sir, 

1 Men of true condition are men well disposed, or men of loyal tempers. 
The use of condition in that sense is very frequent. 

2 K putter-on is an instigator. So \o put on was often used for \o prompt, 
to incite, or instigate. 



5^ KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT L 

I know but of a single part, in aught 

Pertains to th' State ; and front but in that file 

Where others tell ^ steps with me. 

Cath. No, my lord, 

You know no more than others ; but you frame 
Things that are known ahke ; ^ which are not wholesome 
To those which would not know them, and yet must 
Perforce be their acquaintance. These exactions, 
Whereof my sovereign would have note, they are 
Most pestilent to th' hearing ; and, to bear 'em,^ 
The back is sacrifice to th' load. They say 
They are devised by you ; or else you suffer 
Too hard an exclamation. 

King. Still exaction ! 

The nature of it ? in what kind, let's know, 
Is this exaction? 

Cath. I am much too venturous 

In tempting of your patience \ but am bolden'd 
Under your promised pardon. The subjects' grief 
Comes through commissions, which compel from each 
The sixth part of his substance, to be levied 
Without delay ; and the pretence for this 
Is named, your wars in France : this makes bold mouths : 
Tongues spit their duties out, and cold hearts freeze 
Allegiance in them ; that their curses now 
Live where their prayers did : and it's come to pass, 
That tractable obedience is a slave 

3 To 2?,?// was used for to count; as in " keep tally" still in use. 

4 Are known in common. She means, that he originates measures, and 
then gets the Council to father them ; so that he has the advantage, and 
they bear the responsibility. 

5 That is, in bearing them. See page 54, note 32. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 59 

To each incensed wilL^ I" would your Highness 
Would give it quick consideration, for 
There is no primer business. 

King. By my life, 

This is against our pleasure. 

Wol. And for me, 

I have no further gone in this than by 
A single voice ; and that not pass'd me but 
By learned approbation of the judges. If I am 
Traduced by ignorant tongues, which neither know 
My faculties nor person, yet will be . 
The chronicles of my doing, let me say 
'Tis but the fate of place, and the rough brake 
That virtue must go through. We must not stint 
Our necessary actions, in the fear 

To cope malicious censurers ; which ever, * 

As ravenous fishes, do a vessel follow 
That is new-trimm'd, but benefit no further 
Than vainly longing. What we oft do best, 
By sick interpreters,''' or weak ones, is 
Not ours, or not allow'd ; what worst, as oft, 
Hitting a grosser quality, is cried up 
For our best action. If we shall stand still, 
In fear our motion will be mock'd or carp'd at, 
We should take root here where we sit, or sit 

6 The meaning seems to be, that the spirit of obedience succumbs or gives 
way to the violence or distemper of individual will. 

"' Heath thinks the epithet sick is here used in accordance with the Stoic 
philosophy, which regarded the passions as so many diseases of the soul. 
He adds, " By sick interpreters, therefore, the Poet intended such as are 
under the actual influences of enyy, hatred, or any other of the malevolent 
passions." — Allow'd, in the next line, is approved. See The Winter's Tale, 
page 49, note 29. 



60 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT I. 

State-statues only. /'^ 

King. ' Things done well, 

And with a care, exempt themselves from fear j 
Things done without example, in their issue 
Are to be fear'd. Have you a precedent 
Of this commission ? I believe, not any. 
We must not rend our su:bjects from our laws, 
And stick them in our will. Sixth part of each ? 
A trembling ^ contribution ! Why, we take 
From every tree lop,^ bark, and part o' the timber ; 
And, though we leave it with a root, thus hack'd, 
The air will drink the sap. To every county 
Where this is question' d send our letters, with 
Free pardon to each man that has denied 
The force of this commission : pray, look to't ; 
I put it to your care. 

WoL \_Aside to the Secretary.] A word with you : 
Let there be letters writ to every shire. 
Of the King's grace and pardon. The grieved commons 
Hardly conceive of me ; let it be noised 
That through our intercession this revokement 
And pardon comes : I shall anon advise you 
Further in the proceeding. \Exit Secretary. 

Enter Surveyor. 

Cath. I'm sorry that the Duke of Buckingham 
Is run in ^^ your displeasure. 

8 Trembling, if it be the right word here, must be used causatively, that 
is, in the sense of dreadful or terrible. The Poet uses divers intransitive 
verbs in this way, such as cease, fall, &c. 

9 The lop of a tree is the branches, that which is lopped or cut off from 
the timber-part or the trunk. 

1" In for into ; the two being often used indiscriminately. 



SCENE II. 



KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 6l 



King. It grieves many : 

The gentleman is learned, and a most rare speaker ; 
To Nature none more bound ; his training such, 
That he may furnish and instruct great teachers, 
And never seek for aid out of himself. Yet see. 
When these so noble benefits shall prove 
Not well disposed, the mind growing once corrupt. 
They turn to vicious forms, ten times more ugly 
Than ever they were fair. This man so c6mplete, 
Who was enroll'd 'mongst wonders, and when we, 
Almost with hstening ravish'd, could not find 
His hour of speech a minute ; he, my lady, 
Hath into monstrous habits put the graces 
That once were his, and is become as black 
As if besmear'd in Hell. Sit by us ; you shall hear — 
This was his gentleman in trust — of him 

Things to strike honour sad. — Bid him recount 

The fore-recited practices ; whereof 

We cannot feel too httle, hear too much. 

WoL Stand forth, and with bold spirit relate what you, 

Most like a careful subject, have collected 

Out of the Duke of Buckingham. 

King. Speak freely. 

Surv. First, it was usual with him, every day 

It would infect his speech, that, if the King 

Should without issue die, he'd carry it so 

To make the sceptre his : these very words 

I've heard him utter to his son-in-law. 

Lord Aberga'ny; to whom by oath he menaced 

Revenge upon the Cardinal. 

Wol. Please your Highness, note 

His dangerous conception in this point. 



62 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH, ACT I. 

Not friended by his wish, to your high person 
His will is most maUgnant ; and it stretches 
Beyond you, to your friends. 

Cath. My learn'd Lord Cardinal, 

Deliver all with charity. 

King. Speak on : 

How grounded he his title to the crown, 
Upon our fail? to this point hast thou heard him 
At any time speak aught ? 

Surv. - He was brought to this 

By a vain prophecy of Nicholas Hopkins. 

King. What was that Hopkins ? 

Surv. Sir, a Chartreux friar, 

His c6nfessor ; who fed him every minute 
With words of sovereignty. 

King. How know'st thou this ? 

Surv. Not long before your Highness sped to France, 
The duke being at the Rose,ii within the parish 
Saint Lawrence Poultney, did of me demand 
What was the speech among the Londoners 
Concerning the French journey : I replied. 
Men fear'd the French would prove perfidious, 
To the King's danger. Presently the duke 
Said, 'twas the fear, indeed ; and that he doubted ^^ 
'Twould prove the verity of certain words 
Spoke by a holy monk ; that oft, says he, 
Hath sent to me, wishing me to permit 
John de la Car, my chaplain, a choice hour 

11 This was " the Manor of the Rose," of which Cunningham, in his 
Hand-book of Lottdon, says " a crypt remains between Duck's-foot-lane and 
Merchant Tailor's School." 

12 Doubted ior feared or suspected ; a frequent usage. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 6$ 

To hear from him a matter of some moment : 

Whom after, under the confession^ s seal, 

He solemnly had sworn, that what he spoke 

My chaplain to no creature living but 

To me should utter, with demure confidence 

This pausingly ensued: " Neither the King nor's heirs, 

Tell you the duke, shall prosper : bid hi7n strive 

To gain the love <?' the commonalty : the duke 

Shall govern England^ 

Cath. If I know you well. 

You were the duke's surveyor, and lost your office 
On the complaint o' the tenants : take good heed 
You charge not in your spleen a noble person, 
And spoil your nobler soul : I say, take heed ; 
Yes, heartily beseech you. 

King. Let him on. — * 

Go forward. 

Su7'v. On my soul, I'll speak but truth. 

I told my lord the duke, by th' Devil's illusions 
The monk might be deceived ; and that 'twas dangerous 
For him to ruminate on this so far, until 
It forged him some design, which, being believed, 
It was much like to do : he answer' d. Tush, 
It can do me no damage; adding further, 
That, had the King in his last sickness fail'd, 
The Cardinal's and Sir Thomas Lovell's heads 
Should have gone off. 

King. Ha ! what, so rank ? Ah-ha ! 

There's mischief in this man. — Canst thou say further? 

Surv. I can, my liege. 

King. Proceed. 

Surv, Being at Greenwich, 



64 . KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT I. 

After your Highness had reproved the duke 
About Sir WilHam Blomer, — 

King. I remember 

Of such a time : being my servant sworn, 
The duke retain'd him his. — But on ; what hence ? 

Surv. If, quoth he, I for this, had been committed 
To th^ Tower, as I thought, I would have plafd 
The part my father meant to act upon 
Th'' usurper Richard ; who, being at Salisbury, 
Made suit to come in' s presence ; which if granted, 
As he made semblance of his duty, would 
Have put his knife into him. 

King. A giant traitor ! 

Wol. Now, madam, may his Highness live in freedom, 
And this man out of prison ? 

Cath. God mend all ! 

King. There's something more would out of thee ; what 
say'st ? 

Surv. After the duke his father, with the knife. 
He stretch'd him, and, with one hand on his dagger, 
Another spread on's breast, mounting his eyes. 
He did discharge a horrible oath ; whose tenour 
Was, were he evil used, he would outgo 
His father by as much as a performance 
Does an irresolute purpose. 

King. There's his period, 

To sheathe his knife in us. He is attach'd j 
Call him to present trial : if he may 
Find mercy in the law, 'tis his ; if none. 
Let him not seek't of us : by day and night, 
He's traitor to the height. i3 \_Exeunt. 

13 By day and night is simply an adjuration ; not meaning that he is a 
traitor night and day ; which were a little too flat. 



SCENE III. 



KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 6$ 



Scene III. — T/ie Same. A Room in the Palace. 
Enter the Lord Chamberlain and Lord Sands.^ 

Cham. Is't possible the spells of France should juggle 
Men into such strange mysteries ? ^ 

Sands. New customs, 

Though they be never so ridiculous, 
Nay, let 'em be unmanly, yet are follow'd. 

Cham. As far as I see, all the good our English 
Have got by the late voyage is but merely 
A fit or two o' the face ; ^ but they are shrewd ones ; 
For, when they hold 'em, you would swear directly 
Their very noses had been counsellors 
To Pepin or Clotharius, they keep state so. 

Sands. They've all new legs, and lame ones : one would 
take it. 
That never saw 'em pace before, the spavin 
Or springhalt reign'd among 'em. 

Cham. Death ! my lord, 

Their clothes are after such a pagan cut too. 
That, sure, they've worn out Christendom. — 

Enter Sir Thomas Lovell. 

How now ! 
What news, Sir Thomas Lovell ? 

1 The author places this scene in 1521. Charles Somerset, Earl of Wor- 
cester, was then Lord Chamberlain, and continued in the office until his 
death, in 1526, But Cavendish, from whom this was originally taken, places 
this event at a later period, when Lord Sands himself was chamberlain. Sir 
William Sands, of the Vine, near Basingstoke, Hants, was created a peer in 
1527. . He succeeded the Earl of Worcester as chamberlain. 

2 Mysteries are arts, and here artificial fashions. 

3 Kfit of the face is 2l grimace, an artificial cast of the countenance. 



66 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT I. 

Lov, Faith, my lord, 

I hear of none, but the new proclamation 
That's clapp'd upon the court-gate. 

Chaf?i. What is't for? 

Lov. The reformation of our travelFd gallants, 
That fill tlie Court with cjuarrels, talk, and tailors. 

Cham. I'm glad 'tis there : now I would pray our mon- 
sieurs 
To think an English courtier may be wise, 
And never see the Louvre. 

Lov. They must either — 

For so run the conditions — leave those remnants 
Of fool and feather, "* that they got in France, 
With all their honourable points of ignorance 
Pertaining thereunto, — as fights and fireworks ; 
Abusing better men than they can be. 
Out of a foreign wisdom ; — renouncing clean 
The faith they have in tennis and tall stockings, 
Short blister'd breeches^ and those types of travel, 
And understand again like honest men ; 

4 The text may receive illustration from Nashe's Life of Jack Wilton, 
1594 : " At that time I was no common squire, no under-trodden torchbearer : 
/ had 7Jty feather in my cap as big as a flag in the foretop ; my French 
doublet gelte in the belly ; a paire of side-paned hose, that hung down like 
two scales filled with Holland cheeses ; my long stock that sate close to my 
dock; my rapier pendant, like a round sticke ; my blacke cloake of cloth, 
overspreading my backe lyke a thornbacke or an elephant's eare ; and, in 
consummation of my curiositie, my handes without gloves, all a mode 
French" Douce justly observes that Sir Thomas Lovell's is an allusion to 
the feathers which were formerly worn by Fools in their caps, and which 
are alluded to in the ballad of News and no News : " And feather's wagging 
in a fool's cap." 

5 This word blister'd describes with picturesque humour the appearance 
of the slashed breeches, covered as they were with little puffs of satin lining 
which thrust themselves out through the slashes. — GRANT WHITE. 



SCENE III. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 6/ 

Or pack to their old playfellows : there, I take it, 

They may, cum privilegio, wee ^ away 

The lag end of their lewdness, and be laugh'd at. 

Sands. 'Tis time to give 'em physic, their diseases 
Are grown so catching. 

Cham. What a loss our ladies 

Will have of these trim vanities ! 

Lov. Ay, marry. 

There will be woe indeed, lords : the sly knaves 
Have got a speeding trick to wheedle ladies ; 
A French song and a fiddle has no fellow. 

Sands. The Devil fiddle 'em ! I'm glad they're going ; 
For, sure, there's no converting of 'em : now 
An honest country lord, as I am, beaten 
A long time out of play, may bring his plain-song,''' 
And have an hour of hearing ; and, by'r Lady, 
Held current music too. 

Cham. Well said, Lord Sands ; 

Your colt's tooth s is not cast yet. 

Sands. No, my lord ; 

Nor shall not, while I have a stump. 

Cham. Sir Thomas, 

6 Wee is, I take it, merely an Anglicized spelling of the French oui, and 
is used as a verb. Of course it is meant in ridicule of the trick these French- 
ified dandies have caught up of aping French idioms in their talk. — The 
wit of this scene and the next, though of quite another tang than Shake- 
speare's, is in Fletcher's liveliest and spiciest vein. See Critical Notes. 

■< Plain-song is an old musical term used to denote the simplicity of the 
chant. His lordship's thought is that, tlie apish and fantastical embroidery 
of French manners being put down by royal proclamation, the plain style 
of old honest English manhood will now stand some chance of being heeded 
again. 

8 Colt's-tooth'\%2C!\o\di exT^x&ssion fov youthfulness generally. The Lord 
Chamberlain means that Sands has not sown all his wild oats yet. 



68 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT I. 

Whither were you a-going? 

Zov. To the Cardinal's : 

Your lordship is a guest too. 

Cham. O, 'tis true : 

This night he makes a supper, and a great one, 
To many lords and ladies ; there will be 
The beauty of this kingdom, I'll assure you. 

Lov. That churchman 9 bears a bounteous mind in- 
deed, 
A hand as fruitful as the land that feeds us ; 
His dews fall everywhere. 

Cham. No doubt he's noble ; 

He had a black mouth that said other of him. 

Sands. He may, my lord, — 'has wherewithal ; in him 
Sparing would show a worse sin than ill doctrine : 
Men of his way should be most liberal ; 
They're set here for examples. 

Cham. True, they are so ; 

But few now give so great ones. My barge stays ; ^^ 
Your lordship shall along. — Come, good Sir Thomas, 
We shall be late else ; which I would not be. 
For I was spoke to, with Sir Henry Guildford, 
This night to be comptrollers. 

Sands. I'm your lordship's. 

\_Exeunt. 

9 Churchman was formerly used as a term of distinction for a priest, or 
what is now called a clergyman, 

10 The speaker is now in the King's palace at Bridewell, from whence he 
is proceeding by water to York-Place. 



SCENE IV. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 69 

Scene IV. — The Same. The Presence- Chamber in York- 
Place. 

Hautboys. A small table under a state for the Cardinal, a 
longer table for the Guests. Enter, on one side, Anne 
BoLEYN a7id divers Lords, Ladies, and Gentlewomen, as 
guests ; on the other, e7iter Sir Henry Guildford. 

Guild. Ladies, a general welcome from his Grace 
Salutes ye all ; this night he dedicates 
To fair content and you : none here, he hopes, 
In all this noble bevy,i has brought with her 
One care abroad; he would have all as merry 
As feast, good company, good wme, good welcome. 
Can make good people. — O, my lord, you're tardy : 

Enter Lord Chamberlain, Lord Sands, and Sir Thomas 

LOVELL. 

The very thought of this fair company 
Clapp'd wings to me. 

Cham. You're young, Sir Harry Guildford. — 

Sweet ladies, will it please you sit? — Sir Harry, 
Place you that side ; I'll take the charge of this : 
His Grace is entering. — /Nay, you must not freeze ; 
Two women placed together makes cold weather : — / 
My Lord Sands, you are one will keep 'em waking ; ! 
Pray, sit between these ladies. 

1 A bevy is a company. In the curious catalogue of " the companyes of 
bestys and foules," in the Book of St. Albans, it is said to be the proper 
term for a company of ladies, of roes, and of quails. It origin is yet to 
seek. Spenser has " a bevy of ladies bright" in his Shepherd's Calendar, 
and " a lovely bevy of faire ladies " in his Faerie Queene ; and Milton has 
" a bevy of fair dames." 



70 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT I. 

Sands. By my faith, 

And thank your lordship. — By your leave, sweet ladies : 

\_Seats himself between Anne Boleyn and another Lady. 
If I chance to talk a little wild, forgive me ; 
I had it from my father. 

Anne. Was he mad, sir? 

Sands. O, very mad, exceeding mad ; in love too ; 
But he would bite none : just as I do now, 
He would kiss you twenty with a breath. [^Kisses he?'. 

Cha?n. Well said, my lord. 

So, now you're fairly seated. — Gentlemen, 
The penance lies on you, if these fair lacMes 
Pass away frowning. 

Sands. For my little cure,^ 

Let me alone. 

Hautboys. Enter Cardinal Wolsey, attended, and takes his 

state. 

Wol. Ye're welcome, my fair guests : that noble lady, 
Or gentleman, that is not freely merry. 
Is not my friend : this, to confirm my welcome ; 
And to you all, good health. \_Drinks. 

Sands. Your Grace is noble : 

Let me have such a bowl may hold ^ my thanks, 
And save me so much talking. 

Wol. My Lord Sands, 

I am beholding ^ to you : cheer your neighbours. — 

2 Cure, as the word is here used, is a parochial charge ; hence the word 
curate, for one who ministers in such a charge. Of course his lordship is 
speaking facetiously. 

3 " Such a bowl as may hold," we should say. Such omission or ellipsis 
of the relatives is very frequent in Shakespeare. 

4 This old use of beholding, where we should use beholden, falls under the 
general head of active and passive forms used indiscriminately. 



SCENE IV. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 7I 

Ladies, you are not merry : — gentlemen, 
Whose fault is this ? 

Sands. The red wine first must rise 

In their fair cheeks, my lord ; then we shall have 'em 
Talk us to silence. 

Anne. You're a merry gamester, 

My Lord Sands. 

Sands. Yes, if I may make my play.^ 

Here's to your ladyship : and pledge it, madam, 
For 'tis to such a thing, — 

Anne. You cannot show me. 

Sa7ids. I told your Grace they would talk anon. 
\_Drum and trumpets, and chambers ^ discharged, within. 

Wol. What's that? 

Cham. Look out there, some of ye. \_Exit a Servant. 

Wol. What warlike voice. 

And to what end, is this ! — Nay, ladies, fear not ; 
By all the laws of war ye 're privileged. 

Re-enter Servant. 

Cham. How now ! what is't? 

Serv. A noble troop of strangers. 

For so they seem : they've left their barge, and landed ; 
And hither make, as great ambassadors 
From foreign princes. 

Wol. Good Lord Chamberlain, 

Go, give 'em welcome ; you can speak the French tongue ; 

5 That is, " if I may choose vay game." 

6 Chambers are short pieces of ordnance, standing almost erect upon 
their breechings, chiefly used upon festive occasions, being so contrived as 
to carry great charges, and make a loud report. They had their name 
from being little more than mere chambers to lodge powder ; that being the 
technical name for the cavity in a gun which contains the powder. 



72 • KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT L 

And, pray, receive 'em nobly, and conduct 'em 
Into our presence, where this heaven of beauty 
Shall shine at full upon them. — Some attend him. — 

\_Exit Chamberlain, attended. All rise, and the 

tables are removed. 
You've now a broken banquet ; but we'll mend it. 
A good digestion to you all : and once more 
I shower a welcome on ye ; — welcome all. — 

Hautboys. Enter the King and others, as Masquers, habited 
like Shepherds, ushered by the Lord Chamberlain. They 
pass directly before the Cardinal, and gracefully salute him. 

A noble company ! what are their pleasures ? 

Cham. Because they speak no English, thus they pray'd me 
To tell your Grace, that, having heard by fame 
Of this so noble and so fair assembly 
This night .to meet here, they could do no less. 
Out of the great respect they bear to beauty. 
But leave their flocks ; and, under your fair conduct, 
Crave leave to view these ladies, and entreat 
An hour of revels with 'em. 

Wol. Say, Lord Chamberlain, 

They've done my poor house grace ; for which I pay 'em 
A thousand thanks, and pray 'em take their pleasures. 

[Ladies chosen for the dance. The King chooses 

Anne Boleyn. 

King. The fairest hand I ever touch'd ! O beauty, 
Till now I never knew thee ! '^ [Music. Dance. 

■^ This incident of the King's dancing with Anne Boleyn did not occur 
during the banquet at York-House, but is judiciously introduced here from 
another occasion : A grand entertainment given by the King at Greenwich, 
May 5, 1527, to the French ambassadors who had come to negotiate a mar- 



SCENE IV. 



KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 73 



IVbl My lord, — 

Cham. Your Grace? 

Wol. Pray, tell 'em thus much from me : 

There should be one amongst 'em, by his person. 
More worthy this place than myself; to whom. 
If I but knew him, with my love and duty 
I would surrender it. 

Cham. I will, my lord. 

[ Goes to the Masquers, and returns. 

Wol. What say they ? 

Cham. Such a one, they all confess, 

There is indeed ; which they would have your Grace 
Find out, and he will take it. 

Wol. Let me see then. — 

[ Comes from his state. 
By all your good leaves, gentlemen ; here Til make ♦ 

My royal choice.^ 

King. \Unmasking7\ Ye've found him. Cardinal: 
You hold a fair assembly ; you do well, lord : 
You are a churchman, or, I'll tell you. Cardinal, 
I should judge now unhappily.^ 

Wol. I'm glad 

Your Grace is grown so pleasant. 

King. My Lord Chamberlain, 

riage between their King, Francis I., or his son, the Duke of Orleans, and 
the Princess Mary. First a grand tournament was held, and three hundred 
lances broken ; then came a course of songs and dances. About midnight, 
the King, the ambassadors, and six others withdrew, disguised themselves 
as Venetian noblemen, returned, and took out ladies to dance, the King 
having Anne Boleyn for his partner. 

8 A royal choice, because it has a king for its object. 

9 That is, waggishly, or mischievously. Shakespeare often uses unhappy 
and its derivatives in this sense. See Much Ado, page 53, note 32. 



74 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT I. 

Pr'ythee, come hither : what fair lady's that ? 

Cham. An't please your Grace, Sir Thomas Boleyn's 
daughter, — 
The Viscount Rochford, — one of her Highness' women. 

King. By Heaven, she is a dainty one. — Sweetheart, 
I were unmannerly, to take you out. 

And not to kiss you.^^ {Kisses her.'] — A health, gentlemen ! 
Let it go round. 

WoL Sir Thomas Lovell, is the banquet ready 
I' the privy chamber? 

Lov. Yes, my lord. 

Wol. Your Grace, 

I fear, with dancing is a little heated. 

King. I fear, too much. 

Wol. There's fresher air, my lord, 

In the next chamber. 

King. Lead in your ladies, every one : — sweet partner, 
I must not yet forsake you : let's be merry. — 
Good my Lord Cardinal, I've half a dozen healths 
To drink to these fair ladies, and a measure ^^ 
To lead 'em once again ; and then let's dream 
Who's best in favour. — Let the music knock it.^^ 

\_Exeunt with trumpets. 

10 A kiss was anciently the established fee of a lady's partner. Thus in 
" A Dialogue between Custom and Veritie, concerning the Use and Abuse 
of Dauncing and Minstrelsie " : 

But some reply, what foole would daunce, 

If that when daunce is doon 
He may not have at ladyes lips 

That which in daunce he woon. 

11 Measure is the old name of a slow-measured dance, such as was used 
on special occasions of state and ceremony. 

12 The use of this phrase for " let the music flayl' or strike up, probably 
sprung from beating time, or the beating of drums. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 75 

ACT II. 

Scene I. — London, A Street. 
Enter two Gentlemen, meeting. 

1 Gent. Whither away so fast? 

2 Gent. O, God save ye ! 
E'en to the hall, to hear what shall become 

Of the great Duke of Buckingham. 

1 Gent. I'll save you 
That labour, sir. All's now done, but the ceremony 
Of bringing back the prisoner. 

2 Gent. Were you there ? 

1 Gent. Yes, indeed, was I. * 

2 Gent. Pray, speak what has happen'd. 

1 Gent. You may guess quickly what. 

2 Gent. . Is he found guilty ? 

1 Gent. Yes, truly is he, and condemn'd upon't. 

2 Gent. I'm sorry for't. 

1 Gent. So are a number more. 

2 Gent. But, pray, how pass'd it? 

I Gent. I'll tell you in a little. The great duke 
Came to the bar ; where to his accusations 
He pleaded still, not guilty, and alleged 
Many sharp reasons to defeat the law. 
The King's attorney, on the contrary. 
Urged on th' examinations, proofs, confessions 
Of divers witnesses ; which the duke desired 
To have brought, viva voce, to his face : l^ /^ '*' 
At which appear'd against him his surveyor ; 



76 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT 11. 

Sir Gilbert Peck his chancellor ; and John Car, 
Confessor to him ; with that devil-monk, 
Hopkins, that made this mischief. 

2 Gent That was he 

That fed him with his prophecies ? 

1 Gent. , The same. 
All these accused him strongly ; which he fain 
Would have flung from him, but, indeed, he could not : 
And so his peers, upon this evidence, 

Have found him guilty of high treason. Much 
He spoke, and learnedly, for hfe ; but all 
Was either pitied in him or forgotten. 

2 Gent. After all this, how did he bear himself? 

1 Gent. When he was brought again to th' bar, to hear 
His knell wrung out, his judgment, he was stirr'd 

With such an agony, he swet extremely, 
And something spoke in choler, ill, and hasty : 
But he fell to himself again, and sweetly 
/ In all the rest show'd a most noble patience. 

2 Gent. I do not think he fears death. 

1 Gent. - Sure, he does not ; 
He never was so womanish : the cause 

He may a little grieve at. 

2 Gent. Certainly 
The Cardinal is the end of this. 

I Gent. 'Tis likely, 

By all conjectures : first, Kildare's attainder, 
Then deputy of Ireland ; who removed. 
Earl Surrey was sent thither, and in haste too, 
Lest he should help his father.^ 

1 There was great enmitie betwixt the cardinall and the earle, for that 
on a time, when the cardinall tooke upon him to checke the earle, he had 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 7/ 

2 Gent. That trick of State 

Was a deep-envious one. 

1 Gent. At his return 
No doubt he will requite it. This is noted, 
And generally, whoever the King favours. 
The Cardinal instantly will find employment,^ 
And far enough from Court too. 

2 Gent. All the commons 
Hate him perniciously, and, o' my conscience. 
Wish him ten fathom deep : this duke as much 

They love and dote on ; call him bounteous Buckingham, 
The mirror of all courtesy, — 

1 Gent. Stay there, sir. 
And see the noble ruin'd man you speak of. 

Enter ^ucKmGRAU from his arraignment; Tipstaves before 
him ; the axe with the edge towards him ; halberds on 
each side : with him Sir Thomas Lovell, Sir Nicholas 
Vaux, Sir William Sands, and common People. 

2 Gent. Let's stand close,^ and behold him. 

Buck. All good people, 

You that thus far have come to pity me. 
Hear what I say, and then go home and lose me. 
I have this day received a traitor's judgment, 

like to have thrust his dagger into the cardinall. At length there was occa- 
sion offered him to compasse his purpose, by the earle of Kildare's com- 
ming out of Ireland. Such accusations were framed against him, that he 
was committed to prison, and then by the cardinals good preferment the 
earle of Surrie was sent into Ireland as the Kings deputie, there to remaine 
rather as an exile than as lieutenant, as he himself well perceived. — HOL- 
INSHED. 

2 That is, will find employment /^r. The Poet has many like instances 
of prepositions understood. 

3 Close is secret, or out of sight. Often so. 



78 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT II. 

And by that name must die : yet, Heaven bear witness, 
And if I have a conscience, let it sink me, 
Even as the axe falls, if I be not faithful ! 
The law I bear no malice for my death ; 
'T has done, upon the premises, but justice : 
But those that sought it I could wish more Christians : 
Be what they will, I heartily forgive 'em : 
Yet let 'em look they glory not in mischief, 
Nor build their evils on the graves of great men ; 
For then my guiltless blood must cry against 'em. 
For further life in this world I ne'er hope, 
Nor will I sue, although the King have mercies 
More than I dare make faults. You few that loved me, 
And dare be bold to weep for Buckingham, 
His noble friends and fellows, whom to leave 
Is only bitter to him, only dying, 
Go with me, like good angels, to my end ; 
, And, as the long divorce of steel falls on me, 
Make of your prayers one sweet sacrifice. 
And lift my soul to Heaven. — Lead on, o' God's name. 

Lov. I do beseech your Grace, for charity. 
If ever any malice in your heart 
Were hid against me, now forgive me frankly. 

Buck. Sir Thomas Lovell, I as free forgive you 
As I would be forgiven : I forgive all ; 
There cannot be those numberless offences 
'Gainst me that I cannot take peace with : no black envy '* 
Shall mark my grave. Commend me to his Grace ; 

4 Envy is continually used for malice in old English, We have the same 
sense a little before in "That trick of State was a diQQ-^-envious one." — 
" Take peace with " here evidently means forgive or pardon. Shakespeare 
has no instance, I think, of the phrase so used. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 79 

And, if he speak of Buckingham, pray, tell him 
You met him half in Heaven : my vows and prayers 
Yet are the King's ; and, till my soul forsake me. 
Shall cry for blessings on him : may he live 
Longer than I have time to tell his years ! 
Ever beloved and loving may his rule be ! 
And, when old time shall lead him to his end, 
Goodness and he fill up one monument ! 

Lov. To th' water-side I must conduct your Grace \ 
Then give my charge up to Sir Nicholas Vaux, 
Who undertakes you to your end. 

Vaux. Prepare there, 

The duke is coming : see the barge be ready ; 
And fit it with such furniture as suits 
The greatness of his person. 

Buck. Nay, Sir Nicholas, , 

Let it alone ; my state now will but mock me. 
When I came hither, I was Lord High-Constable 
And Duke of Buckingham ; now, poor Edward Bohun : ^ 
Yet I am richer than my base accusers. 
That never knew what truth meant : I now seal it ; 
And with that blood will make 'em one day groan for't. 
My noble father, Henry of Buckingham, 
Who first raised head against usurping Richard, 
Flying for succour to his servant Banister, 
Being distress'd, was by that wretch betray'd, 
And without trial fell ; God's peace be with him ! 
Henry the Seventh succeeding, truly pitying 
My father's loss, like a most royal prince, 

5 The name of the Duke of Buckingham most generally known was Staf- 
ford; it is said that he affected the surname of Bohun, because he was 
Lord High-Constable of England by inheritance of tenure from the Bohuns. 



80 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT II. 

Restored me to my honours, and, out of ruins, 

Made my name once more noble. Now his son, 

Henry the Eighth, hfe, honour, name, and all 

That made me happy, at one stroke has taken 

For ever from the world. I had my trial, 

And must needs say a noble one ; which makes me 

A little happier than my wretched father : 

Yet thus far we are one in fortunes : Both 

Fell by our servants, by those men we loved most ; 

A most unnatural and faithless service ! 

Heaven has an end in all : yet, you that hear me, 

This from a dying man receive as certain : 

Where you are liberal of your loves and counsels 

Be sure you be not loose ; ^ for those you make friends 

And give your hearts to, when they once perceive 

The least rub ^ in your fortunes, fall away 

Like water from ye, never found again 

But where they mean to sink ye. All good people. 

Pray for me ! I must now forsake ye : the last hour 

Of my long weary life is come upon me. 

Farewell : 

And when you would say something that is sad, 

Speak how I fell. — I've done ; and God forgive me ! 

\_Exeunt Buckingham and train, 
I Gent. O, this is full of pity ! — Sir, it calls, 
I fear, too many curses on their heads 

6 That is, loose of tongue^ or given to blabbing your own secrets. So in 
Othello, iii. 3 : 

There are a kind of men so loose of soul 
That in their sleeps will mutter their affairs. 

7 Rub is hiiidraiice or obstruction. So in Hamlet's celebrated soliloquy : 
" Ay, there's the rub" 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 8 1 

That were the authors. 

2 Gent. If the duke be guiltless, 

'Tis full of woe : yet I can give you inkling 
Of an ensuing evil, if it fall, 
Greater than this. 

1 Gent. Good angels keep it from us ! 
What may it be ? You do not doubt my faith,^ sir ? 

2 Gent. This secret is so weighty, 'twill require 
A strong faith to conceal it. 

1 Gent. Let me have it ; 
I do not talk much. 

2 Gent. I am confident ; 

You shall, sir : did you not of late days hear 
A buzzing ^ of a separation 
Between the King and Catharine ? 

1 Gent. Yes, but it held not : 
For, when the King once heard it, out of anger 

He sent command to the Lord Mayor straight 
To stop the rumour, and allay those tongues 
That durst disperse it. 

2 Gent. But that slander, sir, 
Is found a truth now : for it grows again 
Fresher than e'er it was ; and held ^^ for certain 
The King will venture at it. Either the Cardinal, 
Or some about him near, have, out of malice 

To the good Queen, possess'd him with a scruple 
That will undo her : to confirm this too. 



8 Faith iox fidelity ; still sometimes used in that sense. 

9 A buzzing is a whispering, or a rumour. Often so used. 

10 We have the same elliptical form of expression a little before, in i. 3 : 
" And held current music too." That is, " and be held." Here, " and 'tis 
held." 



82 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT II. 

Cardinal Campeius is arrived, and lately ; 
As all think, for this business. 

1 Gent, 'Tis the Cardinal ; 
And merely to revenge him on the Emperor 
For not bestowing on him, at his asking, 

Th' archbishopric of Toledo, ^i this is purposed. 

2 Gent. I think you've hit the mark : but is't not cruel 
That she should feel the smart of this? The Cardinal 
Will have his will, and she must fall. 

I Gent. 'Tis woeful. 

We are too open here to argue this j 
Let's think in private more. [Exeunt. 

Scene II. — The Same. An Ante-chamber in the Palace. 

Enter the Lord Chamberlain, reading a letter. 

Cham. My lord : The horses your lordship sent for, with 
all the care I had, I saw well chosen, iHdden, and fur- 
nish'' d. They were young and handsome, and of the best 
breed in the North. Wlien they were ready to set out for 
London, a man of my Lord CardinaPs, by commission and 
main power, took ''em from me ; with this reason, — His 
master would be served before a subject, if not before the 
King; which stopp''d our mouths, sir. 

I fear he will indeed : well, let him have them : 
He will have all, I think. 



11 This was the richest See in Europe, and was considered the highest 
ecclesiastical dignity in Christendom next to the Papacy. Wolsey did in 
fact aspire to it as a stepping-stone to St. Peter's Chair ; and his disappoint- 
ment therein was among his alleged causes for urging on the divorce. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 83 

Enter the Dukes ^Norfolk <2;?z<3? Suffolk. 1 

Nor. Well met, my Lord Chamberlain. 

Cham. Good day to both your Graces. 

Suf. How is the King employ'd ? 

Cham. I left him private, 

Full of sad thoughts and troubles. 

Nor. What's the cause ? 

Cham. It seems the marriage with his brother's wife 
Has crept too near his conscience. 

Suf. No, his conscience 

Has crept too near another lady. 

Nor. 'Tis so : 

This is the Cardinal's doing, the king-cardinal : 
That bhnd priest, like the eldest son of fortune, 
Turns what he list. The King will know him one day. 

Suf. Pray God he do ! he'll never know himself else. 

Nor. . How holily he works in all his business ! 
And with what zeal ! for, now he has crack'd the league 
'Tween us and th' Emperor, the Queen's great-nephew, 
He dives into the King's soul, and there scatters 
Dangers, doubts, wringing of the conscience. 
Fears, and despairs ; and all these for his marriage : 
And out of all these to restore the King, 
He counsels a divorce j a loss of her 
That, like a jewel, has hung twenty years 
About his neck, yet never lost her lustre ; 
Of her that loves him with that excellence 
That angels love good men with ; even of her 

1 Charles Brandon, the present Duke of Suffolk, was son of Sir William 
Brandon, slain by Richard at the battle of Bosworth. He was created Duke 
of Suffolk in February, 1514, and in March, 1515, was married to Mary, 
youngest sister of the King, and widow of Louis the Twelfth of France. 



84 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT II. 

That, when the greatest stroke of fortune falls, 
Will bless the King : and is not this course pious ? 

Cham. Heaven keep me from such counsel ! 'Tis most 
true 
These news are everywhere ; every tongue speaks 'em, 
And every true heart weeps for't : all that dare 
Look into these affairs see his main end, — 
The French King's sister.^ Heaven will one day open 
The King's eyes, that so long have slept upon 
This bold bad man. 

Suf. And free us from his slavery. 

Nor. We had need pray, 
And heartily, for our deliverance ; 
Or this imperious man will work us all 
From princes into pages : all men's honours 
Lie like one lump before him, to be fashion'd 
Unto what pitch he please. 

Suf. For me, my lords, 

I love him not, nor fear him ; there's my creed : 
As I am made without him, so I'll stand, 
If the King please ; his curses and his blessings 
Touch me alike, they're breath I not believe in. 
I knew him, and I know him ; so I leave him 
To him that made him proud, the Pope. 

Nor. Let's in ; 

And with some other business put the King 
From these sad thoughts, that work too much upon 

him : — 
My lord, you'll bear us company ? 

Cham. Excuse me ; 

2 It was the main end or object of Wolsey to bring about a marriage be- 
tween Henry and the French King's sister, the Duchess of Alencon. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 85 

The King has sent me otherwhere : besides, 
You'll find a most unfit time to disturb him. 
Health to your lordships ! 

Nor. Thanks, my good Lord Chamberlain. 

\_Exit Lord Chamberlain. Norfolk opens a folding- 
door. The King is discovered sitting, and read- 
ing pensively . 
Svf. How sad he looks ! sure, he is much afflicted. 
King. Who's there, ha? 

Nor. Pray God he be not angry. 

King. Who's there, I say? How dare you thrust your- 
selves 
Into my private meditations ? 
Who am I, ha? 

Nor. A gracious king that pardons all offences 
Malice ne'er meant : our breach of duty this way 
Is business of Estate ; in which we come 
To know your royal pleasure. 

King. Ye 're too bold : 

Go to ; I'll make ye know your times of business : 
Is this an hour for temporal affairs, ha? — 

Enter Wolsey and Campeius. 

Who's there? my good Lord Cardinal? O my Wolsey, 

The quiet of my wounded conscience ; 

Thou art a cure fit for a king. — \To Campeius.] You're 

welcome, 
Most learned reverend sir, into our kingdom : 
Use us and it. — \To Wolsey.] My good lord, have great care 
I be not found a talker,^ 

3 The meaning appears to be, " Let care be taken that my promise be 
performed, that my professions of welcome be not found empty talk." 



S6 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT 11. 

IVol. Sir, you cannot. 

I would your Grace would give us but an hour 
Of private conference. 

Xing. \_To Nor. and^uY.'] We are busy; go. 

Nor. \_Aside to Suf.] This priest has no pride in him ! 

Suf. \_Aside to Nor.] , Not to speak of: 

I would not be so sick"* though for his place. 
But this cannot continue. 

Nor. - {Aside to Suf.] If it do, 
I'll venture one have-at-him. 

Suf. {Aside to Nor.] I another. 

{Exeunt Norfolk and Suffolk. 

Wol. Your Grace has given a precedent of wisdom 
Above all princes, in committing freely 
Your scruple to the voice of Christendom : 
Who can be angry now ? what envy reach you ? 
The Spaniard,^ tied by blood and favour to her, 
Must now confess, if they have any goodness, 
The trial just and noble. All the clerks,^ 
I mean the learned ones, in Christian kingdoms 
Have their free voices,"^ Rome, the nurse of judgment, 
Invited by your noble self, hath sent 

4 That is, so sick as he is proud. 

5 Spaniard is here equivalent to Spanish, as appears by they referring to 
it. Adjectives singular were often thus used with the sense of plural sub- 
stantives. 

6 A clerk is, in the original meaning of the word, a scholar ; and in old 
times, when learning was confined to the clergy, the word grew to mean a 
clergyman. 

7 Sent, at the end of the next line, is probably to be understood here. 
Such is Singer's explanation. — Voices for opi?iions ox jiidginents. The ques- 
tion of the divorce was in fact laid before all or most of the learned bodies 
in Europe, who sent forward their opinions in writing ; but it is pretty well 
understood that some of their " free voices " were well paid for. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 8/ 

One general tongue unto us, this good man, 
This just and learned priest, Cardinal Campeius, 
Whom once more I present unto your Highness. 

King. And once more in mine arms I bid him welcome, 
And thank the holy Conclave ^ for their loves : 
They've sent me such a man I would have wish'd for. 

Cam. Your Grace must needs deserve all strangers' ^ 
loves, 
You are so noble. To your Highness' hand 
I tender my commission ; — by whose virtue ^^ — 
The Court of Rome commanding — you, my Lord 
Cardinal of York, are join'd with me their servant 
In the unpartial judging of this business. 

King. Two equal 11 men. The Queen shall be acquainted 
Forthwith for what you come. Where's Gardiner? 

Wol. I know your Majesty has always loved her 
So dear in heart, not to deny her that ^^ 
A woman of less place might ask by law, — 
Scholars allow'd freely to argue for her. 

King. Ay, and the best she shall have ; and my favour 
To him that does best : God forbid else. Cardinal, 
Pr'ythee, call Gardiner to me, my new secretary : 
I find him a fit fellow. {Exit Wolsey. 



8 The holy Conclave is the College of Cardinals, in whose name Cam- 
peius was sent as special Legate in the business. His right name is Cam- 
peggio. He was an eminent canonist, and arrived in London, October 7, 

1528, but in such a state of suffering and weakness, that he was carried in a 
litter to his lodgings. 

9 Strangers here mea-Xis foreigners. 

1" By the virtue of which ; referring to the commission. 

11 Equal is impartial ; men equally favourable to both the parties. 

12 In old English, that is very often used for the compound relative what, 
that which. 



88 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT'II. 

Re-enter Wolsey, with Gardiner. 

Wol. \_Aside to Gard.] Give me your hand : much joy 
and favour to you ; 
You are the King's now. 

Gard. \_Aside to Wol.] But to be commanded 
For ever by your Grace, whose hand has raised me. 

King. Come hither, Gardiner. \_They converse apart. 

Cam. My Lord of York, was not one Doctor Pace 
In this man's place before him ? 

Wol. Yes, he was. 

Cam. Was he not held a learned man ? 

Wol. Yes, surely. 

Cam. Believe me, there's an ill opinion spread, then, 
Even of yourself. Lord Cardinal, 

Wol. How ! of me ? 

Cam. They will not stick to say you envied him ; 
And, fearing he would rise, he was so virtuous, 
Kept him a foreign man still ; i^ which so grieved him, 
That he ran mad and died. 

Wol. Heaven's peace be with him ! 
That's Christian care enough : for living murmurers 
There's places of rebuke. He was a fool ; 
For he would needs be virtuous : that good fellow,^^ 
If I command him, follows my appointment : 
I will have none so near else. Learn this, brother, 
We live not to be griped by meaner persons. 

King. Deliver this with modesty to th' Queen. — 

\_Exit Gardiner. 

13 Kept him employed abroad, or in foreign parts. Holinshed says that 
Wolsey grew jealous of Dr. Pace's standing with the King, and so kept 
shifting him off on frivolous or unimportant embassies, till " at length he 
took such grief therewith, that he fell out of his right wits." 

14 He means Gardiner ; a " good fellow " because unscrupulous. 



SCENfi III. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 89 

The most convenient place that I can think of 

For such receipt of learning ^^ is Black- Friars ; 

There ye shall meet about this weighty business : 

My Wolsey, see it furnish'd. — O, my lord, 

Would it not grieve an able man to leave 

So sweet a bedfellow? But, conscience, conscience, 

O, 'tis a tender place ! and I must leave her. \_Exeunt 



Scene III. — TJie Same. An Ante-chamber in the Queen's 

Apartmeiits. 

Enter Anne Boleyn and an old Lady. 

A?ine. Not for that neither : here's the pang that pinches : 
His Highness having lived so long with her, and she 
So good a lady that no tongue could ever • 

Pronounce dishonour of her, — by my life, 
She never knew harm-doing ; — O, now, after 
So many courses of the Sun enthroned. 
Still growing in majesty and pomp, the which 
To leave's a thousand-fold more bitter than 
'Tis sweet at first t' acquire, — after this process, 
To give her the avaicnt! it is a pity 
Would move a monster. 

Old L. Hearts of most hard temper 

Melt and lament for her. 

Anne. O, God's will ! much better 

She ne'er had known pomp : though't be temporal. 
Yet, if that fortune's quarrel do divorce 

15 A rather odd expression; but meaning "for the reception of such 
learned men." Receipt, however, for the thing received occurs elsewhere. 
See King Richard the Second, page 44, note 26. 



90 , KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT II. 

It from the bearer, 'tis a sufferance panging 
As soul and body's severing. 

Old L. Alas, poor lady ! 

She is a stranger now again. 

Anne. So much the more 

Must pity drop upon her. Verily, 
I swear, 'tis better to be lowly born. 
And range with humble livers in content. 
Than to be perk'd up in a glistering grief. 
And wear a golden sorrow. 

Old L. Our content 

Is our best having. - 

A?me. By my troth and maidenhood, 

I would not be a queen. 

Old L. Beshrew me, I would. 

And venture maidenhood for't ; and so would you, 
For all this spice of your hypocrisy : 
You, that have so fair parts of woman on you. 
Have too a woman's heart ; which ever yet 
Affected eminence, wealth, sovereignty ; 
Which, to say sooth, are blessings ; and which gifts — 
Saving your mincing i — the capacity 
Of your soft cheveril conscience ^ would receive. 
If you might please to stretch it. 

1 Mincing is affectation. To mince is, properly, to cut up fine, as in mak- 
ing mince-\i\^2X. Hence it came to be used of walking affectedly, that is, 
with very short steps, and so of affected behaviour generally. So in Isaiah, 
iii. i6 : " The daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched-forth 
necks and wanton eyes, miftcing as they go, and making a tinkling with 
their feet," 

2 Meaning the same as the " india-rubber consciences " of our time ; 
cheveril being leather made of kid-skin, which was peculiarly yielding and 
stretchy. See Twelfth Night, page 83, note 4. 



SCENE III. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 9 1 

Anne, Nay, good troth, — 

Old L. Yes, troth, and troth : you would not be a queen ? 

Anne. No, not for all the riches under heaven. 

Old L. 'Tis strange ; a three-pence bow'd would hire me. 
Old as I am, to queen it : but, I pray you. 
What think you of a duchess ? have you limbs 
To bear that load of title ? 

Anne. No, in truth. 

Old L. Then you are weakly made : pluck off a little ; ^ 
I would not be a young count in your way. 
For more than blushing comes to. 

Anne. How you do talk ! 

I swear again, I would not be a queen 
For all the world. 

Old L. In faith, for little England 

You'd venture an emballing : ^ I myself * 

Would for Carnarvonshire, although there long'd 
No more to th' crown but that. Lo, who comes here ? 

Enter the Lord Chamberlain. 

Cham. Good morrow, ladies. What were't worth to know 
The secret of your conference ? 

Anne. My good lord, 

Not your demand j it values not your asking : 
Our mistress' sorrows we were pitying. 

Cham. It was a gentle business, and becoming 
The action of good women : there is hope 
All will be well. 

3 Anne declining to be either a queen or a duchess, the old lady says 
" pluck off a little " ; let us descend a little lower, and so diminish the glare 
of preferment by bringing it nearer your own quality. 

4 That is, you would venture to be distinguished by the ball, the ensign 
of royalty, used with the sceptre at coronations. 



92 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT 11. 

Anne. Now, I pray God, amen ! 

Cham. You bear a gentle mind, and heavenly blessings 
Follow such creatures. That you may, fair lady, 
Perceive I speak sincerely, and high note's 
Ta'en of your many virtues, the King's Majesty 
Commends his good opinion to you, and 
Does purpose honour to you no less flowing 
Than Marchioness of Pembroke ; to which title 
A thousand pound a-year, annual support, 
Out of his' grace he adds. 

Ajine. I do not know 

What kind of my obedience I should tender ; 
More than my all is nothing : nor my prayers 
Are not words duly hallo w'd, nor my wishes 
More worth than empty vanities ; yet prayers and wishes 
Are all I can return. Beseech your lordship 
Vouchsafe to speak my thanks and my obedience, 
As from a blushing handmaid, to his Highness ; 
Whose health and royalty I pray for. 

Chani. Lady, 

I shall not fail t' approve the fair conceit^ 
The King hath of you. — \^Aside^ I've perused her well ; 
Beauty and honour in her are so mingled. 
That they have caught the King : and who knows yet 
But from this lady may proceed a gem 
To lighten 6 all this isle?— {_To her.'] I'll to the King, 



5 To approve is here to confirm, by the report he shall make, the good 
opinion the King has formed. 

6 The carbuncle was supposed to have intrinsic light, and to shine in the 
dark ; any other gem may reflect light but cannot give it. Thus in a Pal- 
ace described in Amadis de Gaiile, 1619 : " In the roofe of a chamber hung 
two lampes of gold, at the bottomes whereof were enchased two carbuncles, 



SCENE III. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 93 

And say I spoke with you. 

Anne. My honour' d lord. 

[ Exit Lord Chamberlain. 

Old L. Why, this it is ; see, see ! 
I have been begging sixteen years in Court, — 
Am yet a courtier beggarly, — nor could 
Come pat betwixt too early and too late 
For any suit of pounds ; and you, O fate ! 
A very fresh-fish here, — fie, fie upon 
This c6mpeli'd fortune ! — have your mouth fiU'd up 
Before you open't. 

Anne. This is strange to me. 

Old L. How tastes it? is it bitter? forty pence,^ no. 
There was a lady once — 'tis an old story — - 
That would not be a queen, that would she not, 
For all the mud in Egypt : have you heard it ? * 

Anne. Come, you are pleasant. 

Old L. With your theme, I could 

O'ermount the lark. The Marchioness of Pembroke ! 
A thousand pounds a-year, for pure respect ! 
No other obligation ! By my life. 
That promises more thousands : honour's train 
Is longer than his foreskirt.^ By this time 
I know your back will bear a duchess : say. 
Are you not stronger than you were ? 

Aime. Good lady. 

Make yourself mirth with your particular fancy, 

which gave so bright a splendour round about the roome, that there was no 
neede of any other light." 

7 Forty pence was in those days the proverbial expression of a small 
wager. 

8 Meaning, of course, that still ampler honours are forthcoming to her ; 
or that the banquet will outsweeten the foretaste. 



94 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT II. 

And leave me out on't. Would I had no being, 
If this salute my blood ^ a jot : it faints me, 
To think what follows. 
The Queen is comfortless, and we forgetful 
In our long absence : pray, do not deliver 
What here you've heard to her. 

Old L. What do you think me ? 

\_Exeiinf. 

Scene IV. — The Same. A Hall in Black-Friars. 

Trumpets, semiet, and cornets. Enter two Vergers, with 
short silver wands ; next them, two Scribes, in the habit of 
doctors ; after them, the Archbishop of Canterbury ^ alone ; 
after him, the Bishops of Lincoln, Ely, Rochester, and 
Saint Asaph ; next them, with some small distance, follows 
a Gentleman bearing the pm-se, with the great seal, and a 
cardinal's hat; then two Priests, bearing each a silver cross ; 
then a Gentleman-usher bare-headed, acco7npanied with a 
Sergeant-at-arms bea?ing a silver mace ; then two Gentle- 
men bearing two great silver pillars ; after them, side by 

9 "Salute my blood" means about the same as raise or exhilarate my 
spirits. The phrase sounds harsh ; but blood is often put ior passiofi, or for 
the passions generally ; and to salute easily draws into the sense of to encour- 
age, or to stimulate by encouragement. So in the Poet's 121st Sonnet : 

For why should others' false-adulterate eyes 
Give salutatio7i to 7ny sportive blood ? 

1 At this time, June 21, 1529, the Archbishop of Canterbury was William 
Warham, who died in August, 1532, and was succeeded by Cranmer the 
following March. — The whole of this long stage-direction is taken verbatim 
from the original copy, and in most of its particulars was according to the 
actual event. — The "two priests bearing each a silver cross," and the " two 
gentlemen bearing two great silver pillars," were parts of Wolsey's official 
pomp and circumstance ; the one being symbolic of his office as Archbishop 
of York, the other of his authority as Cardinal Legate. 



SCENE IV. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 95 

side, the two Cardinals, Wolsey and Campeius ; two Noble- 
men with the sword and mace. Then enter the King and 
Queen, and their trains. The King takes place under the 
cloth of state ; the two Cardinals sit under him as judges. 
The Queen takes place at some distance from the King. 
The Bishops place theinselves on each side the coici^t, in 
manner of a consistory; between the nt, the '^cxihQS. The 
Lords sit next the Bishops. The Crier and the rest of the 
Attendants stand in convenient order about the hall. 

Wol. Whilst our commission from Rome is read. 
Let silence be commanded. 

King. What's the need? 

It hath already publicly been read. 
And on all sides th' authority allow'd ; 
You may, then, spare that time. 

Wol. Be't so. — Proceed. 

Scribe. Say, Henry King of England, come into the court. 

Crier. Henry King of England, &c. 

King. Here. 

Scribe. Say, Catharine Queen of England, come into the 
court. 

Crier. Catharine Queen of England, &c. 

\The Queen makes no answer, rises out of her 
chair, goes about the cotcrt, comes to the 
King, and kneels at his feet ; then speaks.^ 

Cath. Sir, I desire you do me right and justice ; 
And to bestow your pity on me : for 
I am a most poor woman, and a stranger, 



2 Because she could not come directly to the king for the distance which 
severed them, she took pain to go about unto the king, kneeling down at his 
feet. — Cavendish. ■ 



96 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT II. 

Born out of your dominions ; having here 

No judge indifferent,^ nor no more assurance 

Of equal friendship and proceeding. Alas, sir, 

In what have I offended you ? what cause 

Hath my behaviour given to your displeasure, 

That thus you should proceed to put me off, 

And take your good grace from me ? Heaven witness, 

I've been to you a true and humble wife, 

At all times to your will conformable ; 

Ever in fear to kindle your dislike, 

Yea, subject to your countenance, glad or sorry, 

As I saw it inclined. When was the hour 

I ever contradicted your, desire, 

Or made it not mine too ? Which of your friends 

Have I not strove to love, although I knew 

He were mine enemy ? what friend of mine. 

That had to him derived your anger, did I 

Continue in my liking? nay, gave not notice 

He was from thence discharged ? Sir, call to mind 

That I have been your wife, in this obedience. 

Upward of twenty years, and have been blest 

With many children by you : if, in the course 

And process of this time, you can report. 

And prove it too, against mine honour aught. 

My bond to wedlock, or my love and duty, 

Against your sacred person,^ in God's name, 

Turn me away ; and let the foul'st contempt 

Shut door upon me, and so give me up 

To th' sharpest kind of justice. Please you, sir. 

The King, your father, was reputed for 

3 Indifferent in its old sense of impartial. 

4 Aught is understood before " Against your sacred person." 



SCENE IV. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 9/ 

A prince most prudent, of an excellent 

And unmatch'd wit and judgment : Ferdinand, 

My father, King of Spain, was reckon'd one 

The wisest prince that there had reign'd by many 

A year before : it is not to be question'd 

That they had gather'd a wise council to them 

Of every realm, that did debate this business, 

Who deem'd our marriage lawful. Wherefore I humbly 

Beseech you, sir, to spaxe me, till I may 

Be by my friends in Spain advised ; whose counsel 

I will implore : if not, i' the name of God, 

Your pleasure be fulfiU'd ! 

PFo/. You have here, lady, — 

And of your choice, — these reverend fathers ; men 
Of singular integrity and learning. 

Yea, the elect o' the land, who are assembled » 

To plead your cause : it shall be therefore bootless 
That longer you defer the court ; as well 
For your own quiet, as to rectify 
What is unsettled in the King. 
. Cam. His Grace 

Hath spoken well and justly : therefore, madam, 
It's fit this royal session do proceed ; 
And that, without delay, their arguments 
Be now produced and heard. 

Caf/i. Lord Cardinal, — 

To you I speak.5 



5 The acting of Mrs. Siddons has been much celebrated as yielding an 
apt commentary on this passage. The effect, it would seem, must have 
been fine ; but perhaps the thing savours overmuch of forcing the Poet to 
express another's thoughts. As thus interpreted, the Queen begins a reply 
to Campeius ; and then, some movement taking place, she forthwith changes 



gS KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT II. 

IVo/. Your pleasure, madam ? 

Cafk. Sir, 

I was about to weep ; but, thinking that 
We are a queen, — or long have dream'd so, — certain 
The daughter of a king, my drops of tears 
I'll turn to sparks of fire. 

J^o/. ^e patient yet. 

Caf/i. I will, when you are humble ; nay, before, 
Or God will punish me. I do bdieve. 
Induced by potent circumstances, that 
You are mine enemy ; and make my challenge ^ 
You shall not be my judge : for it is you 
Have blown this coal betwixt my lord and me ; 
Which God's dew quench ! Therefore I say again, 
I utterly abhor, yea, from my soul 
Refuse^ you for my judge ; whom, yet once more, 
I hold my most malicious foe, and think not 
At all a friend to truth. 

Wo/. I do profess 

You speak not like yourself ; who ever yet 
Have stood to charity, and display'd th' effects 
Of disposition gentle, and of wisdom 

O'ertopping woman's power. Madam, you do me wrong : 
I have no spleen against you ; nor injustice 
For you or any : how far I've proceeded, 

her purpose, turns round to Wolsey, and most pointedly and with the ut- 
most dignity of injured virtue directs her speech to him, making you very 
emphatic. 

6 Challenge here is a law term. The criminal, when he refuses a jury- 
man, says, " I challenge him." 

7 Abhor and refuse are not the mere words of passion, but technical terms 
of the canon law : detestor and recuso. The former, in the language of can- 
onists, signifies no more than I protest against.— Blackstone. 



SCENE IV, KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 99 

Or how far further shall, is warranted 

By a commission from the Consistory, / 

Yea, the whole Consistory of Rome. You charge me 

That I have blown this coal : I do deny it. 

The King is present : if 't be known to him 

That I gainsay my deed, how may he wound, 

And worthily, my falsehood ! yea, as much 

As you have done my truth. But, if he know 

That I am free of your report, he knows 

I am not of your wrong. Therefore in him 

It lies to cure me ; and fthe cure is, to 

Remove these thoughts from you : the which before 

His Highness shall speak in, I do beseech 

You, gracious madam, to unthink your speaking, 

And to say so no more. 

Cath, My lord, my lord, * 

I am a simple woman, much too weak 

T' oppose your cunning. You're meek-and-humble-mouth'd ; 
You sign your place and calling, in full seeming,^ 
With meekness and humility : but your heart 
Is cramm'd with arrogancy, spleen, and pride. 
You have, by fortune, and his Highness' favours. 
Gone slightly o'er low steps, and now are mounted 
Where powers are your retainers ; and your words, 
Domestics to you, serve your will as't please 

8 You have in appearance meekness and humility, as a token or outward 
sign of your place and calling. But perhaps Heath's explanation is better : 
" You testify your high rank in the Church, and your priestly character, by 
that meekness and humility, the semblance of which you know perfectly 
well how to assume. Every one knows that attestations are authenticated 
by signing them ; whence, I suppose, by a pretty violent catachresis, the 
Poet substituted the verb sign, instead of the more simple and obvious one, 
attest" 



lOO KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT II. 

Yourself pronounce their office. ^ I must tell you, 

You tender more your person's honour than 

Your high profession spiritual ; that again 

I do refuse you for my judge ; and here, 

Before you all, appeal unto the Pope, 

To bring my whole cause 'fore his Holiness, 

And to be judged by him. 

\_She curtsies to the King, and offers to depart. 

Cam. The Queen is obstinate, 

Stubborn to justice, apt t' accuse it, and 
Disdainful to be tried by't : 'tis not well. 
She's going away. 

King. Call her again. 

Crier. Catharine Queen of England, come into the court. 

Grif. Madam, you are call'd back. 

Cath. What need you note it? pray you, keep your way : 
When you are call'd, return. — Now, the Lord help me ; 
They vex me past my patience ! — Pray you, pass on : 
I will not tarry ; no, nor ever more 
Upon this business my appearance make 
In any of their courts. 

\_Exeunt Queen, Griffith, and her other Attendants. 

King. Go thy ways, Kate : 

That man i' the world who shall report he has 
A better wife, let him in nought be trusted, 

9 This passage has exercised the commentators a good deal, and is in- 
deed rather obscure ; though I suspect the obscurity is owing mainly to the 
great compression of language. I take the meaning to be something thus : 
Now you have full power to work your will, and therefore use words as 
men use domestics, merely as they will serve your ends, without any regard 
to truth. Powers, plural, for the power of doing various things, whatever 
he may wish. Are your retainers seems equivalent to are entirely at your 
will and pleasure. 



SCENE IV. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. lOI 

For speaking false in that : thou art, alone — 
If thy rare qualities, sweet gentleness, 
Thy meekness saint-like, wife-like government, 
Obeying in commanding, and thy parts 
Sovereign and pious else, could speak thee out — 
The queen of earthly queens. — She's noble bom ; 
And, like her true nobility, she has 
Carried herself towards me. 

Wol. Most gracious sir, 

In humblest manner I require i^ your Highness, 
That it shall please you to declare, in hearing 
Of all these ears, — for where I'm robb'd and bound, 
There must I be unloosed ; although not there 
At once and fully satisfied, — whether ever I 
Did broach this business to your Highness ; or ^ 

Laid any scruple in your way, which might 
Induce you to the question on't ? or ever 
Have to you — but with thanks to God for such 
A royal lady — spake one the least word that might 
Be to the prejudice of her present state. 
Or touch of her good person ? 

King. My Lord Cardinal, 

I do excuse you ; yea, upon mine honour, 
I free you from't. You are not to be taught 
That you have many enemies, that know not 
Why they are so, but, hke to village-curs. 
Bark when their fellows do : by some of these 
The Queen is put in anger. You're excused : 

10 Require, in old language, is often the same as request. Shakespeare 
has it so repeatedly. Thus in Macbeth, iii. 4 : "In best time we will require 
her welcome." And in Coriolanus, ii. 3 : " Once, if he do require our 
voices." 



102 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT II. 

But will you be more justified? you ever 

Have wish'd the sleeping of this business ; never 

Desired it to be stirr'd ; but oft have hinder'd, oft, 

The passages made toward it : — on my honour, 

I speak my good Lord Cardinal to this point/i 

And thus far clear him. Now, what moved me to't, 

I will be bold with time and your attention : 

Then mark th' inducement. Thus it came ; give heed to't : 

My conscience first received a tenderness^ 

Scruple, and prick, on certain speeches utter'd 

By th' Bishop of Bayonne, then French ambassador j 

Who had been hither sent on the debating 

A marriage 'twixt the Duke of Orleans and 

Our daughter Mary : i' the progress of this business, 

Ere a determinate resolution, he — 

I mean the bishop — did require a respite ; 

Wherein he might the King his lord advertise 

Whether our daughter were legitimate. 

Respecting i^ this our marriage with the dowager. 

Sometimes ^^ our brother's wife. This respite shook 

The bottom of my conscience, enter'd me. 

Yea, with a splitting power, and made to tremble 

The region of my breast ; which forced such way, 

That many mazed considerings did throng, 

And press 'd in with this caution. First, methought 

This was a judgment on me, that my kingdom, 

Well worthy the best heir o' the world, should not 

11 The King, having first addressed Wolsey, breaks off; and declares 
upon his honour to the whole court, that he speaks the Cardinal's mind 
upon the point in question. 

12 Respecting, here, is considering. So the usual meaning of the substan- 
tive respect was consideration. See King yohn, page 128, note 5. 

13 Both sometimes and sometime often had the sense oi formerly. 



SCENE IV. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH.. IO3 

Be gladded in't by me : then follows, that 
I weigh'd the danger which my realms stood m 
By this my issue's fail ; and that gave to me 
Many a groaning throe. Thus hulling in 
The v/ild sea ^^ of my conscience, I did steer 
Toward this remedy, whereupon we are 
Now present here together ; that's to say, 
I meant to rectify my conscience — which 
I then did feel full sick, and yet not well ^ 
By all the reverend fathers of the land 
And doctors learn'd. — First I began in private 
With you, my Lord of Lincoln : you remember 
How under my oppression I did reek. 
When I first moved you. 

Lin. Very well, my liege. 

King. I have spoke long : be pleased yourself to say 
How far you satisfied me. 

Lin. So please your Highness, 

The question did at first so stagger me, — 
Bearing a state of mighty moment in't, 
And consequence of dread, — that I committed 
The daring'st counsel which I had to doubt ; 
And did entreat your Highness to this course 
Which you are running here. 

King. I then moved you, 

My Lord of Canterbury ; and got your leave 
To make this present summons : — unsolicited 
I left no reverend person in this court ; 

1* The phrase belongs to navigation. A ship is said to hull when she is 
dismasted, and only her hull or hulk is left to be driven to and fro by the 
waves. So in the Alarm for London, 1602: " And they lye hulling up and 
down the stream." 



104 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT II. 

But by particular consent proceeded 

Under your hands and seals : therefore go on : 

For no dislike i' the world against the person 

Of the good Queen, but the sharp thorny points 

Of my alleged reasons, drive this forward. 

Prove but our marriage lawful, by my life 

And kingly dignity, we are contented 

To wear our mortal state to come with her, 

Catharine our Queen, before the primest creature 

That's paragon'd ^^ o' the world. 

Ca7n. So please your Highness, 

The Queen being absent, 'tis a needful fitness 
That we adjourn this court till further day : 
Meanwhile must be an earnest motion 
Made to the Queen, to call back her appeal 
She intends unto his Holiness. [T/iey rise to depart. 

King. \_Aside.'\ I may perceive 

These Cardinals trifle with me : I abhor 
This dilatory sloth and tricks of Rome. 
My learn'd and well-beloved servant, Cranmer, 
Pr'ythee, return : ^^ with thy approach, I know. 
My comfort comes along. — Break up the court : 

1 say, set on. \_Exeunt in manner as they entered. 

15 To be paragoned is to be compared, or to admit of rivalry or compar- 
ison. Shakespeare has the word several times as a verb. So in Othello, ii. 

2 : "A maid that paragons description and wild fame." Here the word evi- 
dently means rivals or exceeds. So, again, in Antony and Cleopatra, i. 5 : 
" I will give thee bloody teeth, if thou with Caesar paragon again my man 
of men." 

16 The King, be it observed, is here merely thinking aloud. Cranmer 
was at that time absent on a foreign embassy. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. IO5 



ACT III. 

Scene I. — London. Palace at Bridewell: a Rooin in the 
Queen's Apartment. 

The Queen and some of her Women at work. 

Cath. Take thy lute, wench : 1 my soul grows sad with 
troubles ; 
Sing, and disperse 'em, if thou canst : leave working. 

Song. 

Orpheus with his lute made trees, 

And the moimtain-tops that freeze, , 

Bow themselves, when he did sing: 
To his music plants and flowers 
Ever sprung; as^ Sun and showers 

There had made a lasting Spring. 

Every thing that heard hiin play, 
Even the billows of the sea. 

Hung their heads, and then lay by? 
In sweet miLsic is such art. 
Killing^ care and grief of heart 

Fall asleep, or, hearing, die. 

1 Wench, generally implying some disparagement, is here used as a 
familiar term of kindness or endearment. Wretch, a still stronger word, is 
repeatedly used by the Poet in a similar way. 

2 As for as if; a very frequent usage with the old poets. 

3 To lay by is a nautical term for to slacken sail, and so means to become 
quiet or composed. 

4 Killing is here used as an adjective, not as a participle. 



I06 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT III. 

Enter a Gentleman. 

Cath. How now ! 

Gent. An't please your Grace, the two great Cardinals 
Wait in the presence.^ 

Cath. Would they speak with me ? 

Gent. They will'd me s^y so, madam. 

Cath. Pray their Graces 

To come near. \^Exit Gent.] — -What can be their business 
With me, a poor weak woman, fall'n from favour ? 
I do not like their coming, now I think on't. 
They should be good men ; their affairs are righteous : 
Butiall hoods make not monks.^ / 

Enter Wolsey and Campeius. 

Wol. Peace to your Highness ! 

Cath. Your Graces find me here part of a housewife : 
I would be all, against the worst may happen. 
What are your pleasures with me, reverend lords ? 

Wol. May't please you, noble madam, to withdraw 
Into your private chamber, we shall give you 
The full cause of our coming. 

Cath. Speak it here ; 

There's nothing I have done yet, o' my conscience, 
Deserves a corner : would all other women 

5 Presence for presence-chamber, the room where Majesty received 
company. 

6 Being churchmen, they should be virtuous, and every business they 
undertake as righteous as their sacred office : but all hoods make not monks. 
In allusion to the Latin proverb, Cucullus no7i facit monachum, to which 
Chaucer also alludes : 

Habite ne maketh vnonke ne frere / 
But a clene life and devotion, 
Maketh gode men of religion. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 10/ 

Could speak this with as free a soul as I do ! 
My lords, I care not — so much I am happy- 
Above a number — if my actions 
Were tried by every tongue, every eye saw 'em, 
Envy and base opinion set against 'em, 
I know my life so even. If your business 
Do seek me out, and that way I am wife in,''' 
Out with it boldly : ''truth loves open dealing.^ 

Wol. Tanta est erga te mentis integritas, regina serenis- 
sima, — 

Cath. O, good my lord, no Latin ; 
I am not such a truant since my coming, 
As not to know the language I have lived in : 
A strange tongue makes my cause more strange-suspicious. 
Pray, speak in English : here are some will thank you. 
If you speak truth, for their poor mistress' sake ; 
Believe me, she has had much wrong : Lord Cardinal, 
The willing'st sin I ever yet committed 
May be absolved in English. 

Wol. Noble lady, 

I'm sorry my integrity should breed 
So deep suspicion, where all faith was meant. 
And service to his Majesty and you. 
We come not by the way of accusation. 
To taint that honour every good tongue blesses, 
Nor to betray you any way to sorrow ; 
You have too much, good lady : but to know 
How you stand minded in the weighty difference 
Between the King and you ; and to deliver, 

7 The expression is certainly very odd ; but the meaning probably is, 
"and with reference to that question or matter which concerns me as a 
wife." 



I08 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT III. 

Like free and honest men, our just opinions, 
And comforts to your cause. 

Cam. Most honour' d madam, 

My Lord of York, — out of his noble nature, 
Zeal and obedience he still bore your Grace, — 
(Forgetting, like a good man, your late censure 
Both of his truth and him, which was too far,) — 
Offers, as I do, in a sign of peace. 
His service and his counsel. 

Cath. \Aside^ To betray me. — 

My lords, I thank you both for your good wills : 
Ye speak like honest men ; pray God, ye prove so ! 
But how to make ye suddenly an answer, 
In such a point of weight, so near mine honour, — 
More near my life, I fear, — with my weak wit. 
And to such men of gravity and learning. 
In truth, I know not. I was set at work 
Among my maids ; full little, God knows, looking 
Either for such men or such business. 
For her sake that I have been, — for I feel 
The last fit of my greatness, — good your Graces, 
Let me have time and counsel for my cause : 
Alas, I am a woman, friendless, hopeless ! 

Wol. Madam, you wrong the King's love with these 
fears : 
Your hopes and friends are infinite. 

Cath. In England 

But little for my profit : can you think, lords. 
That any Englishman dare give me counsel? 
Or be a known friend, 'gainst his Highness' pleasure, — 
Though he be grown so desperate to be honest, — 
And live a subject? Nay, forsooth, my friends. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. IO9 

They that must weigh out^ my afflictions, 
They that my trust must grow to, Hve not here : 
They are, as all my other comforts, far hence, 
In mine own country, lords. 

Cam. I would your Grace 

Would leave your griefs, and take my counsel. 

Cath. How, sir? 

Cam. Put your main cause into the King's protection ; 
He's loving and most gracious : 'twill be much 
Both for your honour better and your cause ; 
For, if the trial of the law o'ertake ye. 
You'll part away disgraced. 

Wol. He tells you rightly. 

Cath. Ye tell me what ye wish for both, my ruin : 
Is this your Christian counsel ? out upon ye ! 
Heaven is above all yet ; there sits a Judge 
That no king can corrupt. 

Cam. Your rage mistakes us. 

Cath. The more shame for ye \^ holy men I thought ye. 
Upon my soul, two reverend cardinal virtues ; 
But cardinal sins and hollow hearts I fear ye : 
Mend 'em, for shame, my lords. Is this your comfort? 
The cordial that ye bring a wretched lady, 
A woman lost among ye, laugh 'd at, scorn'd? 
I will not wish ye half my miseries ; 
I have more charity : but say, I warn'd ye ; 
Take heed, for Heaven's sake, take heed, lest at once 
The burden of my sorrows fall upon ye. 

Wol. Madam, this is a mere distraction ; 



8 Weigh outior weigh; that is, consider them, do justice to them. 

9 If I mistake you, it is by your fault, not mine ; for I thought you good. 



no KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT III. 

You turn the good we offer into envy.^^ 

Cath. Ye turn me into nothing : woe upon ye, 
And all such false professors ! Would you have me — 
If you have any justice, any pity, 
If ye be any thing but churchmen's habits — 
Put my sick cause into his hands that hates me ? 
Alas, 'has banish'd me his bed already, 
His love, too long ago ! I'm old, my lords, 
And all th'e fellowship I hold now with him 
Is only my obedience. What can happen 
To me above this wretchedness ? all your studies 
Make me a curse like this. 

Cam. Your fears are worse. 

Cath. Have I lived thus long (let me speak myself, 
Since virtue finds no friends) a wife, a true one ? 
A woman — I dare say, without vain-glory — 
Never yet branded with suspicion? 
Have I with all my full affections 

Still met the King? loved him next Heaven? obey'd him? 
Been, out of fondness, superstitious to him? 
Almost forgot my prayers to content him ? 
And am I thus rewarded? 'tis not well, lords. 
Bring me a constant woman to her husband,!^ 
One that ne'er dream'd a joy beyond his pleasure ; 
And to that woman, when she has done most, 
Yet will I add an honour, — a great patience. 

Wol. Madam, you wander from the good we aim at. 

Cath. My lord, I dare not make myself so guilty, 
To give up willingly that noble title 



10 Envy, again, for malice. See page 78, note 4. 

11 A woman constant to her husband. Constant in the sense oi faithful. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. Ill 

Your master wed me to : nothing but death 
Shall e'er divorce my dignities. 

Wo I. Pray, hear me. 

Cath. Would I had never trod this English earth, 
Or felt the flatteries that grow upon it ! 
YeVe angels' faces, but Heaven knows your hearts. 
What will become of me now, wretched lady ! 
I am the most unhappy woman living. — 
\_To /z^r Women.] Alas, poor wenches, where are now your 

fortunes ! 
Shipwreck'd upon a kingdom, where no pity. 
No friends, no hope ; no kindred weep for me ; 
Almost no grave allow'd me : like the lily, 
That once was mistress of the field and flourish'd, 
I'll hang my head and perish. 

Wol. If your Grace 

Could but be brought to know our ends are honest. 
You'd feel more comfort. Why should we, good lady. 
Upon what cause, wrong you ? alas, our places. 
The way of our profession is against it : 
We are to cure such sorrows, not to sow 'em. 
For goodness' sake, consider what you do ; 
How you may hurt yourself, ay, utterly 
Grow from the King's acquaintance, by this carriage. 
The hearts of princes kiss obedience. 
So much they love it ; but to stubborn spirits 
They swell, and grow as terrible as storms. 
I know you have a gentle-noble temper, 
A soul as even as a calm : pray, think us 
Those we profess, peace-makers, friends, and servants. 

Cam. Madam, you'll find it so. You wrong your virtues 
With these weak women's fears : a noble spirit. 



112 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT III. 

As yours was put into you, ever casts 

Such doubts, as false coin, from it. The King loves you ; 

Beware you lose it not : for us, if please you 

To trust us in your business, we are ready 

To use our utmost studies in your service. 

Cath. Do what ye will, my lords : and, pray, forgive me. 
If I have used myself unmannerly ; 
You know I am a woman, lacking wit 
To make, a seemly answer to such persons. 
Pray, do my service to his Majesty : 
He has my heart yet ; and shall have my prayers 
While I shall have my life. Come, reverend fathers, 
Bestow your counsels on me : she now begs. 
That little thought, when she set footing here, 
She should have bought her dignities so dear. \_Exeunf. 

,M Scene II. — The Same. Ante-chamher to the King's Apart- 
ment ill the Palace. 

Enter the Duke of Norfolk, the Duke of Suffolk, the Earl 
of Surrey, and the Lord Chamberlain. 

Nor. If you will now unite in your complaints. 
And force ^ them with a constancy, the Cardinal 
Cannot stand under them : if you omit 
The offer of this time, I cannot promise 
But that you shall sustain more new disgraces. 
With these you bear already. 

Sur, I am joyful 

To meet the least occasion that may give me 

1 Force for enforce, press, or urge. So in Measure for Measure, iii. I : 
" That thus can make him bite the law by th' nose when he would y&^t^ it." 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 113 

Remembrance of my father-in-law, the duke, 
To be revenged on him. 

Suf. Which of the peers 

Have uncontemn'd gone by him, or at least 
Strangely neglected P^ when did he regard 
The stamp of nobleness in any person 
Out of himself? 

Cham. My lords, you speak your pleasures : 

What he deserves of you and me I know ; 
What we can do to him, — though now the time 
Gives way 3 to us, — I much fear. If you cannot 
Bar his access to th' King, never attempt 
Any thing on him ; for he hath a witchcraft 
Over the King in's tongue. 

Nor. O, fear him not ; 

His spell in that is out : the King hath found 
Matter against him that for ever mars 
The honey of his language. No, he's settled, 
Not to come off, in his displeasure. 

Sur. Sir, 

I should be glad to hear such news as this 
Once every hour. 

Nor. Believe it, this is true : 

In the divorce his contrary proceedings 
Are all unfolded ; wherein he appears 
As I would wish mine enemy. 

Sur. How came 

His practices to light ? 

2 The force of twt in uncontemn'd extends over strangely neglected. The 
Poet has many instances of similar construction. 

3 That is, opens a way, gives us an opportunity. So in Julius Ccssar, ii. 
3 : " ^ecnnty gives way to conspiracy." 



1 14 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT III. 

Suf. Most Strangely. 

Sur. O, how, how> 

Suf. The Cardinal's letter to the Pope miscarried, 
And came to th' eye o' the King : wherein was read, 
How that the Cardinal did entreat his Holiness 
To stay the judgment o' the divorce ; for, if 
It did take place, / do, quoth he, perceive 
My King is tangled in affection to 
A creature of the Queen'' s, Lady Anne Boleyn. 

Sur. Has the King this ? 

Suf. Believe it. 

Sur. Will this work? 

Cham. The King in this perceives him, how he coasts 
And hedges his own way.^ But in this point 
All his tricks founder, and he brings his physic 
After his patient's death : the King already 
Hath married the fair lady.^ 

Sur. Would he had ! 

Suf. May you be happy in your wish, my lord ! 
For, I profess, you have it. 

Sur. Now, all joy 

Trace ^ the conjunction ! 

Suf My amen to't ! 

Nor. All men's ! 

4 To coast is to hover about, to pursue a sidelong course about a thing. 
To hedge is to creep along by the hedge, not to take the direct and open 
path, but to steal covertly through circumvolutions. 

5 The date commonly assigned for the marriage of Henry and Anne is 
November 14, 1532 ; at which time they set sail together from Calais, the 
King having been on a visit to his royal brother of France. Lingard, follow- 
ing Godwin, Stowe, and Cranmer, says they were privately married the 25th 
of January, 1533. 

6 To trace is \o follow or attend. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. II5 

Suf. There's order given for her coronation : 
Marry, this is yet but young, and may be left 
To some ears unrecounted. But, my lords, 
She is a gallant creature, and complete 
In mind and feature : I persuade me, from her 
Will fall some blessing to this land, which shall 
In it be memorized.''' 

Sur. But will the King 

Digest this letter of the Cardinal's ? 
The Lord forbid ' 

Nor. Marry, amen ! 

Stif. No, no ; 

There be more wasps that buzz about his nose 
Will make this sting the sooner. Cardinal Campeius 
Is stol'n away to Rome ; hath ta'en no leave ; 
Has left the cause o' the King unhandled ; and 
Is posted, as the agent of our Cardinal, 
To second all his plot. I do assure you 
The King cried Ha I at this. 

Cham. Now, God incense him, 

And let him cry Ha / louder ! 

Nor. But, my lord, 

When returns Cranmer? 

Suf. He is return 'd in his opinions ; ^ which 

7 To memorize is to viake memorable. So in Macbeth, i, 2 : " Except they 
meant to bathe in reeking wounds, or memorize another Golgotha, I cannot 
tell." 

8 Cranmer, then one of thfe King's chaplains, had been on a special mis- 
sion to advocate the divorce at Rome, and to collect the opinions of learned 
canonists and divines in Italy and elsewhere. Doubtless these are the opiji- 
ions meant in the text. The using of in with the force of as to, or in respect 
of, has occasioned some doubt as to what is meant by opinions. Cranmer 
has returned in effect, by sending on the opinions. 



Il6 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT III. 

Have satisfied tlie King for his divorce, 
Together with all famous colleges 
Almost in Christendom : shortly, I believe, 
His second marriage shall be publish'd, and 
Her coronation. Catharine no more 
Shall be call'd queen, but princess dowager 
And widow to Prince Arthur. 

Nor. This same Cranmer's 

A worthy fellow, and hath ta'en much pain 
In the King's business. 

Suf. He has ; and we shall see him 

For it an archbishop. 

Nor. So I hear. 

Suf. 'Tis so. 

The Cardinal ! 

Enter Wolsey and Cromwell. 

Nor. Observe, observe, he's moody. 

Wol. The packet, Cromwell, gave't you the King? 

Crom. To his own hand, in's bedchamber. 

Wol. Look'd he o' the inside of the papers ? 

Crom. Presently 

He did unseal them : and the first he view'd, 
He did it with a serious mind ; a heed 
Was in bis countenance. And you he bade 
Attend him here this morning. 

Wol. Is he ready 

To come abroad? 

Crom. I think, by this he is. 

Wol. Leave me awhile. — ' \^Exit Cromwell. 

It shall be to the Duchess of Alengon 
The French King's sister : he shall marry her. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. II 7 

Anne Boleyn ! No ; I'll no Anne Boleyns for him : 

There is more in it than fair visage. Boleyn ! 

No, we'll no Boleyns. Speedily I wish 

To hear from Rome. The Marchioness of Pembroke ! 

Nor. He's discontented. 

Suf. May be, he hears the King 

Does whet his anger to him. 

Sur. Sharp enough, 

Lord, for Thy justice ! 

WoL The late Queen's gentlewoman, a knight's daughter, 
To be her mistress' mistress ! the Queen's queen ! 
This candle burns not clear : 'tis I must snuff it ; 
Then out it goes. What though I know her virtuous 
And well-deserving ? yet I know her for 
A spleeny Lutheran ; and not wholesome to 
Our cause, that she should lie i' the bosom of ' 

Our hard-ruled King. Again, there is sprung up 
An heretic, an arch one, Cranmer ; one 
Hath crawl' d into the favour of the King, 
And is his oracle. 

Nor. He's vex'd at something. 

Sur. I would 'twere something that would fret the string. 
The master- cord on's heart ! 

Suf. The King, the King ! 

Enter the King, reading a schedule, and Lovell. 

King. What piles of wealth hath he accumulated 
To his own portion ! and what expense by th' hour 
Seems to flow from him ! How, i' the name of thrift, 
Does he rake this together ? — Now, my lords. 
Saw you the Cardinal ? 

Nor. My lord, we have 



Il8 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. act ill. 

Stood here observing him : some strange commotion 
Is in his brain : he bites his hp, and starts ; 
Stops on a sudden, looks upon the ground, 
Then lays his finger on his temple ; straight 
Springs out into fast gait ; then stops again, 
Strikes his breast hard ; and then anon he casts 
His eye against the Moon : in most strange postures 
We've seen him set himself. 

King. - It may well be 

There is a mutiny in's mind. This morning 
Papers of State he sent me to peruse. 
As I required : and wot you what I found, 
There, on my conscience, put unwittingly? 
Forsooth, an inventory, thus importing : 
The several parcels of his plate, his treasure, 
Rich stuffs, and ornaments of household j which 
I find at such proud rate, that it out-speaks 
Possession of a subject.^ 

Nor. It's Heaven's will : 

Some spirit put this paper in the packet. 



9 This incident, in its application to Wolsey, is a fiction : he made no 
such mistake ; but, another person having once done so, he took occasion 
thereby to ruin him. The story is told by Holinshed of Thomas Ruthall, 
Bishop of Durham ; who was accounted the richest subject in the realm ; and 
who, having by the King's order written a book setting forth the whole estate 
of the kingdom, had it bound up in the same style as one before written, set- 
ting forth his own private affairs. At the proper time the King sent Wolsey 
to get the book, and the Bishop gave him the wrong one. "The cardinall, 
having the booke, went feorthwith to the king, delivered it into his hands, and 
breefelie informed him of the contents thereof; putting further into his head, 
that if at anie time he were destitute of a masse of monie, he should not 
need.to seeke further than to the cofers of the bishop. Of all which when 
the bishop had intelligence, he was stricken with such greefe, that he shortlie 
ended his life in the yeare 1523." 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. II 9 

To bless your eye withal. 

King. If we did think 

His contemplation were above the Earth, 
And fix'd on spiritual objects, he should still 
Dwell in his musings : but I am afraid 
His thinkings are below the Moon, not worth 
His serious considering. [ Takes his seat, and whispers Lov- 

ELL, who goes to WOLSEY. 

Wol. Heaven forgive me ! — 

Ever God bless your Highness ! 

King. Good my lord, 

You're full of heavenly stuff, and bear the inventory 
Of your best graces in your mind ; the which 
You were now running o'er : you have scarce time 
To steal from spiritual leisure 1^ a brief span 
To keep your earthly audit : sure, in that » 

I deem you an ill husband,ii and am glad 
To have you therein my companion. 

Wol. Sir, 

For holy offices I have a time ; a time 
To think upon the part of business which 
I bear i' the State ; and Nature does require 
Her times of preservation, which perforce 
I, her frail son, amongst my brethren mortal, 

10 That is, leisure for spirihial exercises. The King seems biting him with 
irony ; as- if his leisure were so filled up with spiritual concerns, that he could 
not spare any of it for worldly affairs. " Keep your earthly audit " means, 
apparently, look after your temporal interests, or audit, that is, verify, your 
secular accounts. 

11 Husba7-id, as here used, is manager. So we have husbandry for man- 
agement. These senses come naturally from the primitive sense oi husband, 
which is house band; that which keeps the house in order, and so makes it 
a home. 



I20 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT III. 

Must give my tendance to. 

King. You have said well. 

Wol. And ever may your Highness yoke together, 
As I will lend you cause, my doing well 
With my well saying ! 

King. 'Tis well said again ; 

And 'tis a kind of good deed to say well : 
And yet words are no deeds. My father loved you : 
He said he did ; and with his deed did crown 
His word upon you. Since I had my office, 
I've kept you next my heart ; have not alone 
Employ'd you where high profits might come home, 
But pared my present havings,!^ to bestow 
My bounties upon you. 

Wol. l^Aside.'] What should this mean? 

Sur. \_Aside to the Others^ The Lord increase this busi- 
ness ! 

King. Have I not made you 

The prime man of the State ? I pray you, tell me, 
If what I now pronounce you have found true ; 
And, if you may confess it, say withal, 
If you are bound to us or no. What say you? 

Wol. My sovereign, I confess your royal graces, 
Shower'd on me daily, have been more than could 
My studied purposes requite ; which i^ went 
Beyond all man's endeavours. My endeavours 
Have ever come too short of my desires, 

12 Having, as often, iox possession, or what one has. Pared, of course, is 
lessened, reduced, or impaired. 

13 Which refers, no doubt, to royal graces, not to purposes. He means 
that the King's favours to him were greater than any man could possibly 
merit. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 121 

Yet filed with my abilities : ^^ mine own ends 
Have been mine so, that evermore they pointed 
To th' good of your most sacred person and 
The profit of the State. For your great graces 
Heap'd upon me, poor undeserver, I 
Can nothing render but allegiant thanks ; 
My prayers to Heaven for you ; my loyalty, 
Which ever has and ever shall be growing, 
Till death, that Winter, kill it. 

King. Fairly answer'd ; 

A loyal and obedient subject is 
Therein illustrated : the honour of it 
Does pay the act of it ; as, i' the contrary, ' 
The foulness is the punishment. I presume 
That, as my hand has open'd bounty to you, 
My heart dropp'd love, my power rain'd honour, more 
On you than any ; so your hand and heart. 
Your brain, and every function of your power, 
Should, notwithstanding that your bond of duty, 
As 'twere in love's particular, be more 
To me, your friend, than any.^^ 

Wol. I do profess 

That for your Highness' good I ever labour 'd 
More than mine own ; that I am true, and will be, 
Though all the world should crack their duty to you, 
And throw it from their soul : though perils did 
Abound as thick as thought could make 'em, and 
Appear in forms more horrid, yet my duty — 
As doth a rock against the chiding flood — 

14 That is, kept pace, walked in the sameyf/^, with my abilities. 

15 " Besides your bond of duty as a loyal and obedient servant, you owe 
a particular devotion to me as your special benefactor." 



122 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT III. 

Should the approach of this wild river break, 
And stand unshaken yours. 

King. 'Tis nobly spoken. — 

Take notice, lords, he has a loyal breast. 
For you have seen him open't. — Read o'er this ; 
And, after, this : , [ Giving him papers. 

and then to breakfast with 
What appetite you have. \_Exit, frowning upon Wolsey : the 
Nobles throng after him, smiling and whispering. 

WoL What should this mean ? 

What sudden anger's this? how have I reap'd it? 
He parted frowning from me, as if ruin 
Leap'd from his eyes : so looks the chafed lion 
Upon the daring huntsman that has gall'd him ; 
Then makes him nothing. I must read this paper ; 
I fear, the story of his anger. — 'Tis so ; 
This paper has undone me : 'tis th' account 
Of all that world of wealth I've drawn together 
For mine own ends ; indeed, to gain the Popedom, 
And fee my friends in Rome. O negligence, 
Fit for a fool to fall by ! what cross devil 
Made me put this main secret in the packet 
I sent the King ? Is there no way to cure this ? 
No new device to beat this from his brains ? 
I know 'twill stir him strongly ; yet I know 
A way, if it take right, in spite of fortune. 
Will bring me off again. — What's this? To th'' Pope I 
The letter, as I live, with all the business 
I writ to's Holiness. Nay, then farewell ! 
I've touch'd the highest point of all my greatness \ 
And, from that full meridian of my glory, 
I haste now to my setting : I shall fall 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 1 23 

Like a bright exhalation i^ in the evening, 
And no man see me more. 

Re-enter the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, //^d* Earl of 
Surrey, and the Lord Chamberlain. 

Nor. Hear the King's pleasure, Cardinal ; who commands 
you 
To render up the Great Seal presently 
Into our hands ; and to confine yourself 
To Asher-house,!''' my Lord of Winchester's, 
Till you hear further from his Highness. 

Wol. Stay j 

Where's your commission, lords? words cannot carry 
Authority so weighty. 

Suf. Who dare cross 'em. 

Bearing the King's will from his mouth expressly ? * 

Wol. Till I find more than will or words to do it, — 
I mean your malice, — know, officious lords, 
I dare and must deny it. Now I feel 
Of what coarse metal ye are moulded, envy : 
How eagerly ye follow my disgrace. 
As if it fed ye ! and how sleek and wanton 
Ye appear in every thing may bring my ruin ! 
Follow your envious courses, men of malice ; ^^ 
You've Christian warrant for 'em, and, no doubt, 

16 Exhalation was often used in a way now quite out of date. Here it 
probably means what we call a meteor. See King John, page 98, notes 16 
and 19; also, 1 Henry IV., page 54, note 3. 

1''' Asher was the ancient name of Esher, in Surrey. The author forgot 
that Wolsey was himself Bishop of Winchester, having succeeded Bishop 
Fox in 1528, holding the see in commendam. Esher was one of the episco- 
pal palaces belonging to that see. 

18 An apt instance of envy for malice ; also, of envious for malicious. 



124 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT III. 

In time will find their fit rewards. That seal, 
You ask with such a violence, the King — 
Mine and your master — with his own hand gave me j 
Bade me enjoy it, with the place and honours. 
During my life ; and, to confirm his goodness. 
Tied it by letters-patents,: ^^ now, who'll take it? 

Sur. The King, that gave it. 

Wol. It must be himself, then. 

Sur. - Thou'rt a proud traitor, priest. 
Wol. Proud lord, thou liest : 

Within these forty hours Surrey durst better 
Have burnt that tongue than said so. 

Sur. Thy ambition, 

Thou scarlet sin, robb'd this bewailing land 
Of noble Buckingham, my father-in-law : ^^ 
The heads of all thy brother cardinals — 
With thee and all thy best parts bound together — 
Weigh' d not a hair of his. Plague of your policy ! 
You sent me deputy for Ireland ; 
Far from his succour, from the King, from all 
That might have mercy on the fault thou gavest him : 
Whilst your great goodness, out of holy pity, 

' 19 Such is the old form of writing what we call letters-patent ; which are 
public official documents granting or securing certain rights to the persons 
named therein ; like a certificate of copyright. 

20 I have already noted that the Poet continues the same persons Duke 
of Norfolk and Earl of Surrey through the play. Here the Earl is the same 
who had married Buckingham's daughter, and had been shifted off out of 
the way, when that great nobleman was to be struck at. In fact, however, 
he who, at the beginning of the play, 1520, was Earl, became Duke in 1525. 
At the time of this scene the Earl of Surrey was the ' much-accomphshed 
Henry Howard, son of the former; a man of fine genius and heroic spirit, 
afterwards distinguished alike in poetry and in arms, and who, on the mere 
strength of royal suspicion, was sent to the block in 1547. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 125 

Absolved him with an axe. 

Wol. This, and all else 

This talking lord can lay upon my credit, 
I answer is most false. The duke by law 
Found his deserts : how innocent I was 
From any private malice in his end. 
His noble jury and foul cause can witness. 
If I loved many words, lord, I should tell you 
You have as little honesty as honour ; 
That in the way of loyalty and truth 
Toward the King, my ever royal master, I 
Dare mate^^ a sounder man than Surrey can be. 
And all that love his follies. 

Sur. By my soul. 

Your long coat, priest, protects you ; thou shouldst feel 
My sword i' the life-blood of thee else. — My lords, « 
Can ye endure to hear this arrogance ? 
And from this fellow ? If we live thus tamely, 
To be thus jaded ^2 by a piece of scarlet. 
Farewell nobility ; let his Grace go forward, 
And dare us with his cap like larks. ^-^ 

Wol. All goodness 

Is poison to thy stomach. 

Sur. Yes, that goodness 

Of gleaning all the land's wealth into one, 

21 To mate, here, is to match, to compete with, to challenge. 

22 Jaded is overcrowed, overmastered. The force of this term may be 
best understood from a proverb given by Cotgrave, in v. Rosse, a. Jade. " II 
n'est si bon cheval qui n'en deviendroit rosse : It would anger a saint, or 
crest/all the best man living to be so used." 

23 A cardinal's hat is scarlet, and the method of daring larks is by small 
mirrors on scarlet cloth, which engages the attention of the birds while the 
fowler draws his nets over them. 



126 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT III, 

Into your own hands, Cardinal, by extortion ; 

The goodness of your intercepted packets 

You writ to th' Pope against the King : your goodness, 

Since you provoke me, shall be most notorious. — 

My Lord of Norfolk, — as you're truly noble. 

As you respect the common good, the state 

Of our despised nobihty, our issues, 

Who, if he live, will scarce be gentlemen, — 

Produce the grand sum of his sins, the articles 

Collected from his life. — I'll startle you. 

Wol. How much, methinks, I could despise this man, 
But that I'm bound in charity against it ! 

Nor. Those articles, my lord, are in the King's hand : 
But, thus much, they are foul ones. 

Wol. So much fairer 

And spotless 24 shall mine innocence arise. 
When the King knows my truth. 

Szir. This cannot save you : 

I thank my memory, I yet remember 
Some of these articles ; and out they shall. 
Now, if you can blush, and cry guilty. Cardinal, 
You'll show a little honesty. 

Wol. Speak on, sir ; 

I dare your worst objections : if I blush, 
It is to see a nobleman want manners. 

Sur. I had rather want those than my head. Have at 
you ! 
First, that, without the King's assent or knowledge, 
You wrought to be a Legate ; by which power 



24 The more, virtually implied in fairer, extends its force over spotless ; 
" so much more fair and spotless." See 2 Henry IV., page 156, note 2. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. .127 

You maim'd the jurisdiction of all bishops.^^ 

Nor. Then, that in alt you writ to Rome, or else 
To foreign princes, Ego et Rex mens 
Was still inscribed ; in which you brought the King 
To be your servant.^^ 

Suf. Then, that, without the knowledge 

Either of King or Council, when you went 
Ambassador to th' Emperor, you made bold 
To carry into Flanders the Great Seal. 

Sur. Item, you sent a large commission 
To Gregory de Cassalis, to conclude, 
Without the King's will or the State's allowance,"^'' 
A league between his Highness and Ferrara. 

Suf. That, out of mere ambition, you have caused 



25 A Legate, as the term is here used, was a special representative 9f the 
Pope. If admitted or resident in a country, he could, by virtue of his lega- 
tine commission, overrule or supersede, for the time being, the local author- 
ity of the Bishops. For this cause, all exercise of such powers had been 
prohibited in England by special statute. Nevertheless Wolsey had in fact 
got himself made Legate, and this with the full approval of the King, though 
both of them knew the thing to be unlawful. But the King's approval did 
not justify the minister. 

26 These several charges are taken almost literally from Holinshed, where 
the second item reads thus : " In all writings which he wrote to Rome, or 
anie other forren prince, he wrote Ego et rex meus, I and my King ; as who 
would sale that the king were his servant." In the Latin idiom, however, 
such was the order prescribed by modesty itself. And, in fact, the charge 
against Wolsey, as given from the records of Lord Herbert, was not that he 
set himself above or before the King, but that he spoke of himself along 
with him : " Also, the said lord cardinal, in divers and many of his letters 
and instructions sent out of this realm, had joined himself with your grace, 
as in saying and writing, — The king and I would ye should do thus ; — The 
king and I give you our hearty thanks : whereby it is apparent that he used 
himself more like a fellow to your highness than like a subject." 

27 Allowance in its old sense of approval, or sanction, probably. The 
Poet has both the noun and the verb repeatedly in that sense. 



128 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT III. 

Your holy hat be stamp 'd on the King's coin.^s 

Sur. Then, that you've sent innumerable substance — 
By what means got, I leave to your own conscience — 
To furnish Rome, and to prepare the ways 
You have for dignities ; to th' mere ^9 undoing 
Of all the kingdom. Many more there are ; 
Which, since they are of 'you, and odious, 
I will not taint my mouth with. 

Chaiti. O my lord, 

r Press not a falling man too far ! 'tis virtue : 
His faults lie open to the laws ; let them. 
Not you, correct him. My heart weeps to see him 
So little of his great self. 

Sur. I forgive him. 

Suf. Lord Cardinal, the King's further pleasure is, — 
Because all those things you have done of late, 
By your power legatine, within this kingdom, 
Fall into th' compass oi 2^. prcemimire^^ — 
That therefore such a writ be sued against you ; 
To forfeit all your goods, lands, tenements, 
Chattels, and whatsoever, and to be 
Out of the King's protection : this is my charge. 

Nor. And so we'll leave you to your meditations ^ 
How to live better. For your stubborn answer 



28 This was one of the articles exhibited against Wolsey, but rather with 
a view to swell the catalogue than from any serious cause of accusation ; in- 
asmuch as the Archbishops Cranmer, Bainbridge, and Warham were 
indulged with the same privilege. 

29 Mere in the sense of zitter or absolute ; a frequent usage. . 

30 The judgment in a writ oi prcemunire (a barbarous word used instead 
oi pmmonere) is, that the defendant shall be out of the King's protection ; 
and his lands and tenements, goods and chattels forfeited to the King ; and 
that his body shall remain in prison at the King's pleasure. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 1 29 

About the giving back the Great Seal to us, 

The King shall know it, and, no doubt, shall thank you. 

So fare you well, my little-good Lord Cardinal. 

\_Exeunt all but Wolsey. 
Wol. So farewell to the little good you bear me. 
Farewell, a long farewell, to all my greatness ! 
This is the state of man : To-day he puts forth 
The tender leaves of hope ; to-morrow blossoms, 
And bears his blushing honours think upon him ; 
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost, 
And — when he thinks, good easy man, full surely 
His greatness is a-ripening — nips his root, 
And then he falls, as I do. ■ , I have ventured. 
Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, 
This many Summers in a sea of glory ; 
But far beyond my depth : my high-blown pride * 

At length broke under me ; and now has left me, 
Weary and old with service, to the mercy 
Of a rude stream, that must for ever hide me. I 
Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye : 
I feel my heart new open'd. / O, how wretched 
Is that poor man that hangs on princes' favours ! 
There is, betwixt that smile we would aspire to. 
That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin,^! 
More pangs and fears than wars or wome^ have ; 
And, when he falls, he falls like Lucifer, 
Never to hope again. — 

31 " Their ruin " is the ruin which they inflict ; their referring to princes : 
what is technically called the subjective genitive. So in ii. 3, of this play : 
" And free us from his slavery " ; that is, the slavery imposed by him. See, 
also, The Tempest, page 138, note 23. 



130 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT III. 

Enter Cromwell, amazedly. 

Why, how now, Cromwell ! 

Crom. I have no power to speak, sir. 

Wol. What, amazed 

At my misfortunes ? can thy spirit wonder 
A great man should decline ? Nay, an you weep, 
I'm fall'n indeed. 

Crom. How does your Grace? 

Woi: . Why, well ; 

Never so truly happy, my good Cromwell. 
I know myself now ; and I feel within me 
A peace above all earthly dignities, 
A still and quiet conscience. The King has cured me, 
I humbly thank his Grace ; and from these shoulders. 
These ruin'd pillars, out of pity, taken 
A load would sink a navy, too m^uch honour. 
O, 'tis a burden, Cromwell, 'tis a burden 
Too heavy for a man that hopes for Heaven ! 

Crom. I'm glad your Grace has made that right use of it. 

Wol. I hope I have : I'm able now, methinks — 
Out of a fortitude of soul I feel — 
T' endure more miseries and greater far 
Than my weak-hearted enemies dare offer. 
What news abroad ? 

. Crom. The heaviest and the worst 

Is your displeasure 22 with the King. 

Wol. God bless him ! 

Crom. The next is, that Sir Thomas More is chosen 
Lord Chancellor in your place. 

32 Here "your displeasure " is the pleasure which you have incurred, or 
of which you are the object ; hence called the objective genitive. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. I3I 

Wol. That's somewhat sudden : 

But he's a learned man. May he continue 
Long in his Highness' favour, and do justice 
For truth's sake and his conscience ; that his bones, 
When he has run his course and sleeps in blessings, 
May have a tomb of orphans' tears wept on 'em ! ^3 
What more ? 

Crom. That Cranmer is return' d with welcome, 

Install'd Lord Archbishop of Canterbury. 

Wol. That's news indeed. 

Crom. Last, that the Lady Anne, 

Whom the King hath in secrecy long married, 
This day was view'd in open 2'* as his Queen, 
Going to chapel ; and the voice is now 
Only about her coronation. 

Wol. There was the weight that puU'd me down.' O 
Cromwell, 
The King has gone beyond me : all my glories 
In that one woman I have lost for ever : 
No Sun shall ever usher forth mine honours, . 
Or gild again the noble troops that waited 
Upon my smiles.^^ Go, get thee from me, Cromwell ; 

33 The Lord Chancellor is the general guardian of orphans. "A tomb of 
tears" says Johnson, " is very harsh." Steevens has adduced an Epigram 
of Martial, in which the Heliades are said to " weep a tomb of tears " over a 
viper, Drummond, in his Teares for the Death of Masliades, has the same 
conceit : 

The Muses, Phoebus, Love, have raised of their teares 
A crystal totnb to him, through which his worth appears. 

34 In open is a Latinism. " Et castris in aperto positis," Liv. i. 33 ; that 
is, in a place exposed on all sides to view. 

35 The number of persons who composed Cardinal Wolsey's household, 
according to the authentic copy of Cavendish, •wa.s Jive hundred. Caven- 
dish's work, though written soon after the death of Wolsey, was not printed 



132 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT III. 

I am a poor fall'n man, unworthy now 

To be thy lord and master : seek the King ; 

That sun, I pray, may never set ! I've told him 

What and how true thou art : he will advance thee ; 

Some little memory of me will stir him — 

I know his noble nature — not to let 

Thy hopeful service perish too : good Cromwell, 

Neglect him not; make use^^ now, and provide 

For thine own future safety. 

Crom. O my lord, 

Must I, then, leave you? must I needs forgo 
So good, so noble, and so true a master? 
Bear witness, all that have not hearts of iron, 
With what a sorrow Cromwell leaves his lord. 
The King shall have my service ; but my prayers 
For ever and for ever shall be yours. 

Wol. Cromwell, I did not think to shed a tear 
In all my miseries ; but thou hast forced me. 
Out of thy honest truth, to play the w^oman. 
Let's dry our eyes : and thus far hear me, Cromwell ; 
And — when I am forgotten, as I shall be. 
And sleep in dull cold marble, where no mention 
Of me more must be heard of — say, I taught thee, 
Say, Wolsey — that once trod the ways of glory, 
And sounded all the depths and shoals of honour — 
Found thee a way, out of his wreck, to rise in ; 

till 1641, and then in a most garbled manner, the object of the publication 
having been to render Laud odious, by showing how far Church power had 
been extended by Wolsey, and how dangerous that prelate was, who, in the 
opinion of many, followed his example. In that copy we read that the num- 
ber of his household was eight hundred persons. In other Mss. and in Dr. 
Wordsworth's edition, it is stated at one hundred and eighty persons. 
36 Use and usance were common terms for interest ox profit. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 133 

A sure and safe one, though thy master miss'd it. 
Mark but my fall, and that that ruin'd me. 
'T^Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition : 
By that sin fell the angels ; how can man, then, 
The image of his Maker, hope to win by't ? 
Love thyself last ; cherish those hearts that hate thee : 
Corruption wins not more than honesty. 4 
Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace. 
To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not : 
Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's, 
Thy God's, and truth's : then, if thou fall'st, O Cromwell, 
Thou fall'st a blessed martyr ! Serve the King ; 
And, — pr'ythee, lead me in : 
There take an inventory of all I have, 
To the last penny ; 'tis the King's : my robe, 
And my integrity to Heaven, is all » 

I dare now call mine own. O Cromwell, Cromwell ! 
Had I but served my God with half the zeal 
I served my King, He would not in mine age 
Have left me naked to mine enemies. . 

Crom, Good sir, have patience. 

Wol. So I have. Farewell 

The hopes of Court ! my hopes in Heaven do dwell. 

\_Exeunt, 



134 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT IV. 



ACT IV. 

Scene I. — A Street in Westminster, 
Enter two Gentlemen, meeting. 

1 Gent. You're well met once again. 

2 Gent. So are you. 

1 Gent. You come to take your stand here, and behold 
The Lady Anne pass from her coronation ? 

2 Gent. 'Tis all my business. At our last encounter 
The Duke of Buckingham came from his trial. 

1 Gent. 'Tis very true : but that time offer'd sorrow ; 
This, general joy. 

2 Gent. 'Tis well : the citizens, 

I'm sure, have shown at full their loyal minds — 
As, let 'em have their rights, they're ever forward — 
In celebration of this day with shows. 
Pageants, and sights of honour. 

1 Gent. Never greater, 
Nor, I'll assure you, better taken, sir. 

2 Gent. May I be bold to ask what that contains, 
That paper in your hand ? 

1 Gent. Yes ; 'tis the list 
Of those that claim their offices this day 

By custom of the coronation. 

The Duke of Suffolk is the first, and claims 

To be High-Steward ; next, the Duke of Norfolk, 

He to be Earl Marshal : you may read the rest. 

2 Gent. I thank you, sir : had I not known those cus- 

toms, 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 135 

I should have been beholding to your paper. 
But, I beseech you, what's become of Catharine, 
The princess dowager ? how goes her business ? 

1 Gent. That I can tell you too. The Archbishop 
Of Canterbury, accompanied with other 

Learned and reverend fathers of his order. 
Held a late court ^ at Dunstable, six miles off 
From Ampthill, where the princess lay ; to which 
She was oft cited by them, but appear'd not : 
And, to be short, for not-appearance and 
The King's late scruple, by the main ^ assent 
Of all these learned men she was divorced. 
And the late marriage ^ made of none effect : 
Since which she was removed to Kimbolton, 
Where she remains now sick. 

2 Gent. Alas, good lady ! \Truinpets. 
The trumpets sound : stand close, the Queen is coming. 

The Order of the Procession. 
A lively flourish of trumpets. Then enter, 

1. Two Judges. 

2. Lord Chancellor, with the purse and mace before him. 

3. Choristers, singing. \_Music. 

4. Mayor of London, bearing the mace. Then Garter, in 

his coat-of-ar7ns,^ and on his head a gilt copper crown. 

5 . Marquess Dorset, bearing a sceptre of gold, on his head 

1 " Lately held a court " is the meaning, of course. 

2 Great, strong, mighty, are among the old senses of main. So in Ham- 
let, i, 3 : " No further than the main voice of Denmark goes withal." 

3 That is, the marriage lately considered valid. 

4 His coat of office, emblazoned with the royal arms. 



136 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT IV. 

a demi-coronal of gold. With him, the Earl of 
Surrey, bearing the rod of silver with the dove, 
crowned with an earPs coronet. Collars of esses. ^ 

6. Duke of Suffolk, in his robe of estate, his corofiet on his 

head, bearing a long white wand, as high-steward. 
With him, the Duke of Norfolk, with the rod of 
marshalship, a coronet on his head. Collars of esses. 

7. A canopy borne by four of the Cinque-ports ; ^ under it, 

the Queen in her robe ; her hair richly adorned with 
pearl, crowned. On each side of her, the Bishops of 
London and Winchester. 

8. The old Duchess of Norfolk, in a coronal of gold, 

W7'ought with flowers, bearing the Queen's train. 

9. Certain Ladies or Countesses, with plain circlets of gold 

without flowers. 

A royal train, believe me. These I know : 
Who's that that bears the sceptre ? 

1 Gent. Marquess Dorset ; 
And that the Earl of Surrey, with the rod. 

2 Gent. A bold brave gentleman. That lord should be 
The Duke of Suffolk? 

1 Gent. 'Tis the same ; High-Steward. 

2 Getit. And that my Lord of Norfolk ? 

5 In the account of the coronation, the author follows Hall, who says that 
" such as were knights had collars of esses." A collar of esses was probably - 
so called from the 5-shaped links of the chain-work. Sometimes there were 
ornaments between the esses. It was a badge of equestrian nobility. Its 
origin is unknown. 

6 The _five ports \vere Dover, Hastings, Hythe, Romney, and Sandwich ; 
to which Rye and Winchelsea were afterwards added. The jurisdiction of 
them was vested in barons for the better protection of the English coast. 
Hall says that "the Cinque-ports claimed to bear the canopy over the 
queen's head^ the day of the coronation." 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 137 

1 Gent. Yes. 

2 Gent. \_Looking oft the Queen.] Heaven bless thee ! 
Thou hast the sweetest face I ever look'd on. — 

Sir, as I have a soul, she is an angel ; 
Our King has all the Indies in his arms, 
And more and richer, when he clasps that lady : 
I cannot blame his conscience. 

1 Gent. They that bare 
The cloth of honour o'er her are four barons 
Of the Cinque-ports. 

2 Gent. Those men are happy ; and so are all are near 

her. 
I take it, she that carries up the train 
Is that old noble lady. Duchess of Norfolk. 

1 Gent. It is ; and all the rest are countesses. 

2 Gent. Their coronets say so. These are stars indee^. 

1 Gent. And sometimes falling ones, 

2 Gent. No more of that. 

\_Exit procession, with a great flourish of trumpets. 

Enter a third Gentleman. 

1 Gent. God save you, sir ! where have you been broiling? 
J Gent. Among the crowd i' th' abbey ; where a finger 

Could not be wedged in more : I am stifled 
With the mere rankness of their joy. 

2 Gent. You saw the ceremony? 

3 Gent. That I did. 

1 Gent. How was it? 

3 Gent. Well worth the seeing. 

2 Gent. Good sir, speak it to us. 

J Gent. As well as I am able. The rich stream 
Of lords and ladies, having brought the Queen 



138 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT IV. 

To a prepared place in the choir, fell off 

A distance from her ; while her Grace sat down 

To rest awhile, some half an hour or so. 

In a rich chair of state, opposing freely 

The beauty of her person to the people. 

Believe me, sir, she is the goodliest woman 

That ever lay by man : ' which when the people 

Had the full view of, such a noise arose 

As the shrouds make at sea in a stiff tempest. 

As loud, and to as many tunes : hats, cloaks, — 

Doublets, I think, — flew up ; and had their faces 

Been loose, this day they had been lost. Such joy 

I never saw before. No man living 

Could say. This is my wife, there ; all were woven 

So strangely in one piece. 

2 Gent. But what follow'd? 

J Gent. At length her Grace rose, and with modest 
paces 
Came to the alter ; where she kneel'd, and, saint-like, 
Cast her fair eyes to heaven, and pray'd devoutly ; 
Then rose again, and bow'd her to the people : 
When by the Archbishop of Canterbury 
She had all the royal makings of a queen j 
As holy oil, Edward Confessor's crown, .^ 
The rod, and bird of peace, and all such emblems 
Laid nobly on her : which perform'd, the choir, 
With all the choicest music '^ of the kingdom, 
Together sung Te Deum. So she parted,^ 
And with the same full state paced back again 

■^ Music for mzisicians, or imcsical instrtcments ; a common figure. 
8 The Poet often uses part for depart. So in iii. 2 : " Hq parted frowning 
from me." See, also, The Winter's Tale, page 40, note 2. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 139 

To York-place, where the feast is held.^ 

1 Gent. Sir, you 
Must no more call it York-place, that is past ; 
For, since the Cardinal fell, that title's lost : 
'Tis now the King's, and call'd Whitehall. 

3 Gent. I know it ; 

But 'tis so lately alter'd, that th' old name 
Is fresh about me. 

2 Gent. What two reverend bishops 
Were those that went on each side of the Queen ? 

J Gent. Stokesly and Gardiner ; the one of Winchester, 
Newly preferr'd from the King's secretary ; i^ 
The other, London. 

2 Gent. He of Winchester 

Is held no great good lover of th' Archbishop's, 
The virtuous Cranmer. ♦ 

J Gent. All the land knows that : 

However, yet there is no gfeat breach ; when it comes, 
Cranmer will find a friend will not shrink from him. 

2 Gent. Who may that be, I pray you ? 

J Gent. Thomas Cromwell ; 

A man in much esteem wi' th' King,^! and truly 
A worthy friend. The King 
Has made him master o' the jewel-house, 
And one, already, of the Privy- Council. 

9 The coronation of Anne took place June i, 1533 ; the divorcement of 
Catharine having been formally pronounced the 17th of May. 

10 That is, lately promoted from being the King's secretary, or from the 
office of secretary. This use oi io prefer was common. 

11 This play has many instances of the elided, so as to coalesce with a 
preceding word ; as by th\for th\ to tk\ &c. Here we have a double elision 
oiwith and the, so as to make one syllable of them. The Poet often has it 
so. See The Tempest, page 47, note 16. 



140 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT IV. 

2 Gent. He will deserve more. 

3 Gent. Yes, without all doubt. 
Come, gentlemen, ye shall go my way, which 

Is to the Court, and there shall be my guests : 
Something I can command. As I walk thither, 
I'll tell ye more. 

Both. You may command us, sir. \_Exeunt. 

Scene II. — Kimbolton. 
Enter Catharine, sick ; led between Griffith and Patience. 

Grif. How does your Grace ? 

Cath. O Griffith, sick to death ! 

My legs, like loaden branches, bow to th' earth. 
Willing to leave their burden. Reach a chair : — 
So ; now, methinks, I feel a little ease. 
Didst thou not tell me, Griffith, a^ thou led'st me, 
That the great child of honour. Cardinal Wolsey, 
Was dead?i 

Grif. Yes, madam ; but I thought your Grace, 

Out of the pain you suffer'd, gave no ear to't. 

Cath. Pr'ythee, good Griffith, tell me how he died : » 
If well, he stepp'd before me, happily ,2 
. For my example. 

Grif. Well, the voice goes, madam : 

For, after the stout Earl Northumberland 
Arrested him at York, and brought him forward — . 

1 Wolsey died Nov. 29, 1530 ; and the events of this scene did not occur 
till January, 1536, which was more than two years after the event that closes 
the play. 

2 Happily is sometimes used by Shakespeare for haply, per adventure ; but 
it here more probably means opportunely. 



SCENE 11. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. I4I 

As a man sorely tainted^ — to his answer, 
He fell sick suddenly, and grew so ill 
He could not sit his mule.'* 
' Cath. Alas, poor man ! 

Grif. At last, with easy roads,^ he came to Leicester, 
Lodged in the abbey ; where the reverend Abbot, 
With all his convent, honourably received him ; 
To whom he gave these words, O father Abbot, 
An old man, broken with the storms of State, 
Is come to lay his weary bones among ye ; 
Give him a little earth for charity ! 
So went to bed ; where eagerly his sickness 
Pursued him still : and, three nights after this. 
About the hour of eight, — which he himself 
Foretold should be his last, — full of repentance. 
Continual meditations, tears, and sorrows, ♦ 

He gave his honours to the world again, 
His blessed part to Heaven, and slept in peace. 

Cath. So may he rest ; his faults lie gently on him ! 
Yet thus far, Griffith, give me leave to speak him. 
And yet with charity. He was a man 
Of an unbounded stomach,^ ever ranking 

3 I am not quite clear in wBat sense tainted is used here. Sometimes the 
word means touched; as in j Henry VI., iii. i : "And Nero will be tainted 
with remorse " ; that is, totiched with compassion. Sometimes it means 
attainted or under an attainder ; that is, an impeachment. 

4 Cardinals generally rode on mules, as a mark perhaps of humility. 
Cavendish says that Wolsey " rode like a cardinal sumptuously upon his 
mule, trapped altogether in crimson velvet and gilt stirrups." 

5 Roads, or rodes, here, is the same as courses, stages, ox joiirneys. 

6 Stomach was often used for pride or haughtiness. The Chronicles 
abound in passages showing up this trait in Wolsey's character. Thus : 
" It fortuned that the archbishop of Canterbury wrote to the cardinall anon 
after that he had received his power legantine, the which letter after his old 



142 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT IV. 

Himself with princes ; one that by suggestion 
Tithed all the kingdom : simony was fair-play ; 
His own opinion was his law : i' the presence 
He would say untruths ; and be ever double 
Both in his words and meaning : he was never, 
But where he meant to ruin, pitiful : 
His promises were, as he then was, mighty ; 
But his performance, as he now is, nothing : 
Of his own body he was ill, and gave 
The clergy ill example.''' 

Grif. Noble madam. 

Men's evil manners live in brass ; their virtues 
We write in water. May it please your Highness 
To hear me speak his good now ? 

Cath. Yes, good Griffith ; 

I were malicious else. • 

Grif. This Cardinal, 

Though from an humble stock, undoubtedly 
Was fashion' d to much honour from his cradle. 
He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one ; 

familiar maner he subscribed, Your brother William of Canterburie. With 
which subscription he was so much offended, that he could not temper his 
mood, but in high displeasure said that he would so worke within a while, 
that he should well understand how he was his superiour, and not his 
brother." — "Tithed all the kingdom" means took a tenth part, or, as we 
should say, ten per cent., of all the income of the nation. Hall relates that 
he once claimed from the citizens of London a tithe of their substance, 

7 This speech was evidently founded upon the following, copied by Hol- 
inshed from Hall : " This cardinall was of a great stomach, for he compted 
himselfe equall with princes, and by craftie suggestion got into his hands 
innumerable treasure : he forced little on simonie, and was not pittifull, and 
stood affectionate in his own opinion : in open presence he would lie and 
seie untruth, and was double both in speech and meaning : he would prom- 
ise much and perform little : he was vicious of his bodie, and gave the clergie 
evill example." 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 143 

Exceeding wise, fair-spoken, and persuading : 
Lofty and sour to them that loved him not ; 
But to those men that sought him sweet as Summer. 
And though he were unsatisfied in getting, — 
Which was a sin, — yet in bestowing, madam, 
He was most princely : ever witness for him 
Those twins of learning that he raised in you, 
Ipswich and Oxford ! one of which fell with him, 
Unwilling to outlive the good that did it ; ^ 
The other, though unfinish'd, yet so famous, 
So excellent in art, and still so rising. 
That Christendom shall ever speak his virtue. 
His overthrow heap'd happiness upon him ; 
For then, and not till then, he felt himself. 
And found the blessedness of being little : 
And, to add greater honours to his age * 

Than man could give him, he died fearing God.^ 
Cath. After my death I wish no other herald. 
No other speaker of my living actions. 
To keep mine honour from corruption, 

8 This is commonly, perhaps rightly, explained to mean " the goodness 
that founded it." See Critical Notes. 

9 This speech is formed on the following passage in Holinshed : "This 
cardinall was a man undoubtedly born to honour ; exceeding wise, faire- 
spbken, high-minded, full of revenge, vitious of his bodie ; loftie to his 
enemies, were they never so big, to those that accepted and sought his 
friendship wonderful courteous ; a ripe schooleman ; thrall to affections, 
brought a-bed with fiatterie ; insatiable to get, and more princelie in bestow- 
ing; as appeareth by his two colleges at Ipswich and Oxenford, the one 
overthrown with his fall, the other unfinished, and yet, as it lyeth, for an 
house of studentes incomparable throughout Christendome, A great pre- 
ferrer of his servants, an advauncer of learning, stoute in every quarrel, 
never happy till this his overthrow ; wherein he shewed such moderation, 
and ended so perfectlie, that the houre of his death did him more honour 
than all the pomp of his life passed." 



144 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT IV. 

But such an honest chronicler as Griffith. 

Whom I most hated hving, thou hast made me, 

With thy reHgious truth and modesty, 

Now in his ashes honour : peace be with him ! — 

Patience, be near me still ; and set me lower : 

I have not long to trouble thee. — Good Griffith, 

Cause the musicians play me that sad note 

I named my knell, whilst I sit meditating 

On that celestial harmony I go to. [^Sad and solemn music. 

Grif. She is asleep : good wench, let's sit down quiet. 
For fear we wake her : softly, gentle Patience. 

The Vision. Enter, solemnly tripping one after another, six 
Persofiages, clad in white robes, wea7ing on their heads gar- 
lands of bays, and golden visards on their faces ; branches 
of bays or palm in their hands. They first congee unto 
her, then dance ; and, at certain changes, the first two hold 
a spare ga^dand over her head ; at which the other four 
make reverent curtsies ; then the two that held the garland 
deliver the same to the other next two, who observe the same 
order in their changes, and holding the garland over he? 
head : which done, they deliver the same garland to the 
last two, who likewise observe the satne order ; at which 
{as it were by i^ispiratioit) she makes in her sleep signs of 
rejoicing, and holdeth up her hands to heaven : and so in 
their dancing they vanish, carrying the garland with them. 
The music continues. 

Cath. Spirits of peace, where are ye ? are ye all gone, 
And leave me here in wretchedness behind ye ? 

Grif. Madam, we're here. 

Cath. It is not you I call for : 

Saw ye none enter since I slept ? 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 145 

Qrif. None, madam, 

Cath. No? Saw you not, even now, a blessed troop 
Invite me to a banquet ; whose bright faces 
Cast thousand beams upon me, hke the Sun ? 
They promised me eternal happiness ; 
And brought me garlands, Griffith, which I feel 
I am not worthy yet to wear : I shall, 
Assuredly. 

Grif. I am most joyful, madam, such good dreams 
Possess your fancy. 

Cath. Bid the music leave : 

They're harsh and heavy to me. \_Music ceases. 

Pat. \_Aside to Grif.] Do you note 

How much her Grace is alter'd on the sudden ? 
How long her face is drawn? how pale she looks. 
And of an earthy colour? Mark her eyes ! • 

Grif. \_Astde to Pat.] She's going, wench : pray, pray. 

Pat. [Aside to Grif.] Heaven comfort her ! 

JSnter a Messenger. 

Mess. An't like your Grace, — 

Cath. You are a saucy fellow : 

Deserve we no more reverence ? 

Grif. You're to blame. 

Knowing she will not lose her wonted greatness. 
To use so rude behaviour : i^ go to, kneel. 

Mess. I humbly do entreat your Highness' pardon ; 

10 Queen Catharine's servants, after the divorce at Dunstable, were di- 
rected to be sworn to serve her not as queen but os princess dowager. Some 
refused to take the oath, and so were forced to leave her service ; and as for 
those who took it and stayed, she would not be served by them, by which 
means she was almost destitute of attendants. , 



146 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT IV. 

My haste made me unmannerly. There's staying 
A gentleman, sent from the King, to see you. 

Cath. Admit him entrance, Griffith : but this fellow 
Let me ne'er see again. — [^a:<?2/7// Griffith <^7z^ Messenger. 

Re-enter Griffith, with Capucius. 

If my sight fail not, 
You should be lord ambassador from th' Emperor, 
My royal nephew, and your name Capucius. 

Cap. - Madam, the same ; your servant. 

Cath. O my lord. 

The times and titles now are alter'd strangely 
With me since first you knew me. But, I pray you, 
What is your pleasure with me ? 

Cap. N-oble lady, 

First, mine own service to your Grace ; the next. 
The King's request that I would visit you ; 
Who grieves much for your weakness, and by me 
Sends you his princely commendations, 
And heartily entreats you take good comfort. 

Cath. O my good lord, that comfort comes too late ; 
'Tis like a pardon after execution : 
That gentle physic, given in time, had cured me ; ' 
But now I'm past all comforts here, but prayers. 
How does his Highness ? 

Cap. Madam, in good health. 

Cath. So may he ever do ! and ever flourish. 
When I shall dwell with worms, and my poor name 
Banish'd the kingdom ! — Patience, is that letter, 
I caused you write, yet sent away? 

Pat. No, madam. 

\_Giving it to Catharine. 



SCENEII. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 14/ 

Cath. Sir, I most humbly pray you to deliver 
This to my lord the King j — 

Cap. Most willing, madam. 

Cath, — In which I have commended to his goodness 
The model ^^ of our chaste loves, his young daughter, — 
The dews of heaven fall thick in blessings on her ! — 
Beseeching him to give her virtuous breeding ; — 
She's young, and of a noble modest nature ; 
I hope she will deserve well ; — and a little 
To love her for her mother's sake, that loved him, 
Heaven knows how dearly. My next poor petition 
Is, that his noble Grace would have some pity 
Upon m_y wretched women, that so long 
Have follow'd both my fortunes faithfully : 
Of which there is not one, I dare avow, — 
And now I should not lie, — but will deserve, • 

For virtue and true beauty of the soul, 
For honesty and decent carriage, 
A right good husband, let him be a noble ; i^ 
And, sure, those men are happy that shall have 'em. 
The last is, for my men ; — they are o' the poorest. 
But poverty could never draw 'em from me ; — 
That they may have their wages duly paid 'em. 
And something over to remember me by : 
If Heaven had pleased t' have given me longer life 
And abler means, we had not parted thus. 
These are the whole contents. i^ And, good my lord, 

11 Model here means image or representation, hxi. old usage. 

12 Even though he be a nobleman, 

13 Here is the letter, as given by Lord Herbert : " My most dear lord, 
king, and husband : The hour of my death now approaching, I cannot 
choose but, out of the love I bear you, advise you of your soul's health, 



148 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT IV. 

By that you love the dearest in this world, 
As you wish Christian peace to souls departed, 
Stand these poor people's friend, and urge the King 
To do me this last right. 

Cap. By Heaven, I will, ~ 

Or let me lose the fashion of a man ! 

Cath. I thank you, honest lord. Remember me 
In all humihty unto his Highness : 
Say to him his long trouble now is passing 
Out of this world; tell him, in death I bless'd him, 
For so I will. Mine eyes grow dim. Farewell, 
My lord. — Griffith, farewell. — Nay, Patience, 
You must not leave me yet : I must to bed ; 
Call in more women. When I'm dead, good wench, 
Let me be used with honour : strew me over 
With maiden flowers, ^^ that all the world may know 
I was a chaste wife to my grave : embalm me. 
Then lay me forth ; although unqueen'd, yet like 
A queen, and daughter to a king, inter me. 
I can no more. \_Exeunf, leading Catharine. 

which you ought to prefer before all considerations of the world or flesh 
whatsoever, for which yet you have cast me into many calamities, and your- 
self into many troubles. But I forgive you all, and pray God to do so like- 
wise. For the rest, I commend unto you Mary, our daughter, beseeching 
you to be a good father to her, as I have hitherto desired. I must entreat 
you also to respect my maids, and give them in marriage (which is not much, 
they being but three), and to my other servants a ye^ax's pay besides their 
due, lest otherwise they should be unprovided for. Lastly, I make this vow, 
that mine eyes desire you above all things. Farewell." 

14 At the burial of maidens, it was the custom to scatter flowers in the 
grave. So at the burial of Ophelia, in Hamlet, v. i : " She is allow'd her 
virgin crants, her maiden strewments " ; and the Queen strews flowers, with 
the words, " I thought thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid, and not 
have strew'd thy grave." 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. I49 



ACT V. 

Scene I. — London. A Gallery in the Palace. 

Enter Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, a Page with a torch 

before him. 

Gard. It's one o'clock, boy, is't not? 

Boy. It hath struck. 

Gard. These should be hours for necessities, 
Not for delights ; ^ times to repair our nature 
With comforting repose, and not for us 
To waste these times. — , 

Enter Sir Thomas Lovell. 

Good hour of night. Sir Thom'as ! 
Whither so late ? 

Lov. Came you from the King, my lord ? 

Gard. I did, Sir Thomas ; and left him at primero^ 
With the Duke of Suffolk. 

Lov. I must to him too. 

Before he go to bed. I'll take my leave. 

Gard, Not yet, Sir Thomas Lovell. What's the matter ? 
It seems you are in haste : an if there be 
No great offence belongs to't, give your friend 

1 Gardiner himself is not much delighted. The delights at which he hints 
seem to be the King's diversions, which keep him in attendance. 

2 Primero, or prime, supposed to be the most ancient game of cards in 
England, was very fashionable in Shakespeare's time. 



150 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT V. 

Some touch of your late business : ^ affairs that walk — 
As they say spirits do — at midnight have 
In tliem a wilder nature than the business 
That seeks dispatch by day. 

Lov. , My lord, I love you ; 

And durst commend a Secret to your ear 
Much weightier than this work. The Queen's in labour, 
They say, in great extremity ; and fear'd 
She'll with the labour end. 

Gard. The fruit she goes with 

I pray for heartily, that it may find 
Good time, and live ; but, for the stock, Sir Thomas, 
I wish it grubb'd up now. 

Lov. Methinks I could 

Cry the amen ; and yet my conscience says 
She's a good creature, and, sweet lady, does 
Deserve our better wishes. 

Gard. But, sir, sir, — 

Hear me. Sir Thomas : you're a gentleman 
Of mine own way ; ^ I know you wise, religious ; 
And, let me tell you, it will ne'er be well, — 
'Twill not. Sir Thomas Lovell, take't of me, — 
Till Cranmer, Cromwell, her two hands, and she. 
Sleep in their graves. 

Lov. Now, sir, you speak of two 

The most remark'd i' the kingdom. As for Cromwell, 
Besides that of the jewel-house, he's made Master 
O' the Rolls,^ and the King's secretary ; further, sir, 

3 " Some touch of your /a/^ business" is explained by Johnson, " Some 
hint of the business that keeps you awake so late!' 

4 My own way of thinking in religion. 

5 The Master of the Rolls is the ofificer who has charge of the patents and 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. I5I 

Stands in the gap and trade ^ of more preferments, 
With which the time will load him. Th' Archbishop 
Is the King's hand and tongue ; and who dare speak 
One syllable against him? 

Gard. Yes, yes, Sir Thomas, 

There are that dare ; and I myself have ventured 
To speak my mind of him : and, indeed, this day — 
Sir, I may tell it you, I think — I have 
Incensed "^ the lords o' the Council that he is — 
For so I know he is, they know he is — 
A most arch heretic, a pestilence 
That does infect the land : with which they moved 
Have broken with the King;^ who hath so far 
Given ear to our complaint, — of his great grace 
And princely care, foreseeing those fell mischiefs 
Our reasons laid before him, — 'hath commanded 
To-morrow morning to the Council-board 
He be convented.^ He's a rank weed, Sir Thomas, 

other instruments that have passed the great seal, and of the records of the 
chancery; while, again, the chancery is the court of the Lord Chancellor, to 
decide cases of equity, the highest court of judicature in England next to 
Parliament. — "Besides that of the jewel-house" is besides the mastership 
of the jewels and other ornaments belonging to the crown. 

6 Trade is, in general, a road or way ; that which is trodden. So in 
Udal's Apothegms : "Although it repent them of the trade or way that they 
have chosen." So that the gap and trade means simply the open road, or 
free course. 

7 Incensed or insensed in this instance, and in some others, only means 
instructed, informed: still used in Staffordshire. It properly signifies to 
infuse into the mind, Xoproynpt or instigate. " Invidise stimulo mentes Patrum 
fodit Saturnia : Juno incenseth the senators' minds with secret envy against." 
— Cooper. 

8 Have broken or opened the subject to him. Often so. 

9 Convented is summoned or cited to meet his accusers. The word was 
much used in reference to trials under charges of heresy. 



152 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT V. 

And we must root him out. From your affairs 
I hinder you too long : good night, Sir Thomas. 

Lov. Many good nights, my lord : I rest your servant. 

\_Exeunt Gardiner and Page. 

As LovELL is going out, enter the King and the Duke of 

Suffolk. 

King. Charles, I will play no more to-night ; 
My mind's not on't ; you are too hard for me. 

Suf. Sir, I did never win of you before. 

King. But little, Charles ; 
Nor shall not, when my fancy's on my play. — 
Ndw, Lovell, from the Queen what is the news? 

Lov. I could not personally deliver to her 
What you commanded me, but by her woman 
I sent your message ; who return'd her thanks 
In the great'st humbleness, and desired your Highness 
Most heartily, to pray for her. 

King. What say'st thou, ha? 

To pray for her? what, is she crying out? 

Lov. So said her woman ; and that her sufferance made 
Almost each pang a death. 

King. Alas, good lady ! 

Suf. God safely quit ^^ her of her burden, and 
With gentle travail, to the gladding of 
Your Highness with an heir ! 

King. 'Tis midnight, Charles ; 

Pr'ythee, to bed ; and in thy prayers remember 
Th' estate of my poor Queen. Leave me alone j 

# 

10 A rather peculiar use of quit, but meaning release or set free ; grant 
her ease, rest, or quiet; like the Latin quietus. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 153 

For I must think of that which company 
Would hot be friendly to. 

Suf. I wish your Highness 

A quiet night ; and my good mistress will 
Remember in my prayers. 

King. Charles, good night. — 

{Exit Suffolk. 

Enter Sir Anthony Denny. 

Well, sir, what follows ? 

Den. Sir, I have brought my lord the Archbishop, 
As you commanded me. 

King. Ha ! Canterbury ? 

Den. Ay, my good lord. 

Kijtg. ' 'Tis true : where is he, Denny? 

Den. He attends your Highness' pleasure. ' 

King. Bring him to us. 

\_Exit Denny. 

Lov. {Aside. '\ This is about that which the bishop spake : 
I'm happily n come hither. 

Re-enter Denny, with Cranmer. 

King. Avoid the gallery. [Lovell seems to stay.'\ Ha ! I 
have said. Be gone. 
What ! \_Exeimt Lovell and Denny. 

Cran. {Aside. ~\ I am fearful: wherefore frowns he 
thus? 
'Tis his aspect of terror. All's not well. 

King. How now, my lord ! you do desire to know 
Wherefore I sent for you. 

11 Happily here means luckily, or opportunely ; as in page 140, note 2. 



154 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT V. 

Cran. \_Kneeling.'] It is my duty 

T' attend your Highness' pleasure. 

Kmg. Pray you, arise, 

My good and gracious Lord of Canterbury. \_He rises. 

Come, you and I must walk a turn together ; 
I've news to tell you : come, come, give me your hand. 
Ah, my good lord, I grieve at what I speak. 
And am right sorry to repeat what follows. 
I have,- and most unwillingly, of late 
Heard many grievous, I do say, my lord. 
Grievous complaints of you ; which, being consider'd, 
Have moved us and our Council, that you shall 
This morning come before us ; where, I know, 
You cannot with such freedom purge yourself, 
But that, till further trial in those charges 
Which will require your answer, you must take 
Your patience to you, and be well contented 
To make your house our Tower : you a brother of us,^^ 
It fits we thus proceed, or else no witness 
Would come against you. 

Cran. \_Kneeling.~\ I humbly thank your Highness ; 

And am right glad to catch this good occasion 
Most throughly to be winnow'd,i^ where my chaff 
And corn shall fly asunder : for, I know. 
There's none stands under more calumnious tongues 

12 " You being one of the Council, it is necessary to imprison you, that 
the witnesses against you may not be deterred." 

13 Th7-oughly and thoroughly, as also through and thorough, are used in- 
terchangeably by our old writers : in fact, the two are but different forms of 
the same word; as to be thorough in a thing is to go through it. — Cran- 
mer has in mind St. Matthew, iii. 12 : " Whose fan is in his hand, and he 
will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner ; but he 
will burn up the chaff." 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 1 55 

Than I myself, poor man. 

Kijig. Stand up, good Canterbury : 

Thy truth and thy integrity is rooted 
In us, thy friend : give me thy hand, stand up : 
Pr'ythee, let's walk. \_He rises. ^ Now, by my halidom,!^ 
What manner of man are you ! My lord, I look'd 
You would have given me your petition, that 
I should have ta'en some pains to bring together 
Yourself and your accusers ; and t' have heard you, 
Without indurance,!^ further. 

Cra7i. Most dread liege, 

The good I stand on is my truth and honesty : 
If they shall fail, I, with mine enemies. 
Will triumph o'er my person ; which I weigh not, 
Being of those virtues vacant. I fear nothing 
What can be said against me. * 

Xing. Know you not 

How your state stands i' the world, with the whole world ? 
Your enemies are many, and not small ; their practices 
Must bear the same proportion ; and not ever ^^ r 
The justice and the truth o' the question carries \ 
The due o* the verdict with it : at what ease 
Might corrupt minds procure knaves as corrupt 

1^ Ilalidofn, says Minsheu, 1617, is " an old word used by old country- 
women, by manner of swearing." According to Nares, it is composed of 
Aofy and dofn, like kingdom. So that the oath is much the same as "by my 
faith." 

15 Induratice is here used for imprisonmefif, or being put or held in dura?ice. 
The word is often used thus in the book whence the materials of this scene 
are drawn. So, likewise, in Montagu's Appeal to Ccssar : " If they are not 
beneficed, their indurance is the longer ; the punishment allotted is one whole 
yeares imprisonment." 

16 Not ever is uncommon, and means not always. See Much Ado, page 
S3, note 31. 



156 KING HENRY THE EIGHTfl, ACT V. 

To swear against you ! such things have been done. 
You're potently opposed ; and with a maUce 
Of as great size. Ween you of better luck^ 
I mean, in perjured witness', than your Master, 
Whose minister you are, whiles here He lived 
Upon this naughty Earth ? Go to, go to ; 
You take a precipice for no leap of danger, 
And woo your own destruction. 

Craji. God and your Majesty 

Protect" mine innocence, or I fall into 
The trap is laid for me ! 

King. Be of good cheer ; 

They shall no more' prevail than we give way to. 
Keep comfort to you ; and this morning see 
You do appear before them. If they shall chance, 
In charging you with matters, to commit you, 
The best persuasions to the contrary 
Fail not to use, and with what vehemency 
Th' occasion shall instruct you : if entreaties 
Will render you no remedy, this ring [ Giving ring. 

Deliver them, and your appeal to us 
There make before them. — Look, the good man weeps ! 
He's honest, on mine honour. God's bless'd Mother ! 
I swear he is true-hearted ; and a soul 
None better in my kingdom. — Get you gone. 
And do as I have bid you. \_Exit Cran.] —He has strangled 
His language in his tears. 

Enter old Lady 

Gent [ Within?^ Come back : what mean you ? 
Old L. I'll not come back ; the tidings that I bring 
Will make my boldness manners. — Now, good angels 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 15/ 

Fly o'er thy royal head, and shade thy person 
Under their blessed wings ! 

Ki7ig. Now, by thy looks 

I guess thy message. Is the Queen deliver'd? 
Say ay ; and of a boy. 

Old L. Ay, ay, my liege ; 

And of a lovely boy : the God of Heaven 
Both now and ever bless her ! — 'tis a girl, 
Promises boys hereafter. Sir, your Queen 
Desires your visitation, and to be 
Acquainted with this stranger : 'tis as like you 
As cherry is to cherry. 

King. Lovell ! 

Re-enter Lovell. 

Lov. Sir? 

King. Give her an hundred marks. I'll to the Queen. 

\_Exit. 

Old L. An hundred marks ! By this light, I'll ha' more. 
An ordinary groom is for such payment. 
I will have more, or scold it out of him. 
Said I for this, the girl was like to him ? 
I will have more, or else unsay't ; and now. 
While it is hot, I'll put it to the issue. \_Exeunf. 



Scene II. — Lobby before the Council- Chamber. 

Enter Cranmer ; Servants, Door-keeper, 6^^., attending. 

Cran. I hope I'm not too late ; and yet the gentleman. 
That was sent to me from the Council, pray'd me 
To make great haste. — All fast ? what means this ? — Ho ! 



158 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT V. 

Who waits there ? — Sure, you know me ? 

D. Keep. Yes, my lord ; 

But yet I cannot help you. 

C7'an. Why? 

D. Keep. Your Grace must wait till you be call'd for. 

Enter Doctor Butts. 

Cran. - So. 

Butts. lAsiWe.'] This is a piece of malice. I am glad 
I came this way so happily : the King 
Shall understand it presently. 

Cran. \_Aside.~\ 'Tis Butts, 

The King's physician : as he pass'd along, 
How earnestly he cast his eyes upon me ! 
Pray Heaven, he sound ^ not my disgrace ! For certain, 
This is of purpose laid by some that hate me — 
God turn their hearts ! I never sought their malice — 
To quench mine honour : they would shame to make me 
Wait else at door, a fellow-counsellor. 
Among boys, grooms, and lacqueys. But their pleasures 
Must be fulfiird, and I attend with patience. 

The King and Butts appear at a window above?" 

Butts. I'll show your Grace the strangest sight, — 



1 To sound, as the word is here used, is to report, or noise abroad. 

2 The suspicious vigilance of our ancestors contrived w^indows which 
overlooked the insides of chapels, halls, kitchens, passages, &c. Some of 
these convenient peepholes may still be seen in colleges, and such ancient 
houses as have not suffered from the reformations of modern architecture. In 
a letter from Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1573, printed in 
Seward's Anecdotes : " And if it please her majestic, she may come in through 
my gallerie, and see the disposition of the hall in dynner time, at a window 
opening thereinto," 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 159 

King, What's that, Butts ? 

Btctts. — I think, your Highness saw this many a day. 

King. Body o' me, where is it? 

Butts. There, my lord : 

The high promotion of his Grace of Canterbury ; 
Who holds his state at door, 'mongst pursuivants, 
Pages, and footboys. 

King. Ha ! 'tis he, indeed : 

Is this the honour they do one another? 
'Tis well there's one above 'em yet. I had thought 
They had parted ^ so much honesty among 'em — 
At least, good manners — ag not thus to suffer 
.A man of his place, and so near our favour. 
To dance attendance on their lordships' pleasures, 
And at the door too, like a post with packets. 
By holy Mary, Butts, there's knavery : 
Let 'em alone, and draw the curtain close j ^ 
We shall hear more anon. [ Curtain drawn. 

The Council-Chamber.^ 

Enter the Lord Chancellor, the Duke of Suffolk, the Duke 
^Norfolk, ^^r/<?/" Surrey, Z^r^ Chamberlain, Gardiner, 
and Cromwell. The Chancellor places himself at the 
upper efid of the table on the left hand; a seat being left 
void above him, as for the Archbishop of Canterbury. The 

3 Parted, here, is shared. 

4 The curtain of the balcony or upper stage, where the King now is. 

5 Here the audience had to suppose or imagine a change of scene, namely, 
from the Lobby before the Council-chamber to the interior of the same. In 
the Poet's time, people were contented to be told that the same spot, with, 
perhaps, some slight changes of furniture, or the drawing of a curtain, was 
at once the outside and the inside of the Council-chamber. 



l6o KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT V. 

rest seat iliemselves in order on each side. Cromwell at 
the lower end, as Sea^etary. 

Chan. Speak to the business, master secretary : 
Why are we met in Council ? 

Cro7?i. Please your honours, 

The chief cause concerns his Grace of Canterbury. 

Gard. Has he had knowledge of it ? 

Cro7?i. Yes. 

Nor. Who waits there ? 

D. Keep. Without, my noble lords ? 

Gard. Yes. 

D. Keep. • My lord Archbishop ; 

And has done half an hour, to know your pleasures. 

Chan. Let him come in. 

D. Keep. Your Grace may enter now. 

[Cranmer approaches the Council-table. 

Chan. My good lord Archbishop, I'm very sorry 
To sit here at this present, and behold 
That chair stand empty : but we all are men, 
In our own natures frail, and capable 
Of our flesh ; ^ few are angels : out of which frailty 
And want of wisdom, you, that best should teach us. 
Have misdemean'd yourself, and not a little. 
Toward the King first, then his laws, in filling 

6 A very troublesome passage. Steevens explains it, " While they are 
capable of being invested with flesh " ; Staunton, "Susceptible of fleshly 
temptations " ; Singer, " Susceptible of the failings inherent in humanity. " In 
Hamlet, iv. 4, Ophelia is said to be " as. one incapable of her own distress." 
Here incapable plainly means tmconsclous. See, also, Richard III., p. 95, n. 
3. So, in the text, I suspect capable has the sense of conscious. So that the 
meaning would seem to be, " In our own natures frail, and conscious of our 
frailty y or of our carnal will and tendency. Cranmer is charged with 
heresy, and heresy was regarded as a work of the flesh. See Critical Notes. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. l6l 

The whole realm, by your teaching and your chaplains, — 
For so we are inform'd, — with new opinions, 
Divers and dangerous ; which are heresies, 
And, not reform'd, may prove pernicious. 

Gard. Which reformation must be sudden too, 
My noble lords ; for those that tame wild horses 
Pace 'em not in their hands to make 'em gentle, 
But stop their mouths with stubborn bits, and spur 'em, 
Till they obey the manage. If we suffer — 
Out of our easiness, and childish pity 
To one man's honour — this contagious sickness, 
Farewell all physic : and what follows then ? 
Commotions, uproars, with a general taint 
Of the whole State ; as, of late days, our neighbours, 
The upper Germany,^ can dearly witness, 
Yet freshly pitied in our memories. 

Cran. My good lords, hitherto, in all the progress 
Both of my life and office, I have labour' d, 
And with no little study, that my teaching 
And the strong course of my authority 
Might go one way, and safely ; and the end 
Was ever, to do well : nor is there living — 
I speak it with a single heart, my lords — 
A man that more detests, more stirs against. 
Both in his private conscience and his place. 



''' Alluding to the monstrous fanaticisms that ran wild in Thuringia, under 
the leading of Thomas Muncer, in 1521. Hooker, in his Preface, says of 
them, " When they and their Bibles were alone together, what strange fan- 
tastical opinion soever at any time entered into their heads, their use was to 
think the Spirit taught it them." At length they got so bewitched or be- 
devilled with special licentious revelations, that the Elector of Saxony had 
to take them in hand with a military force. 



1 62 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT V. 

Defacers of the public peace, than I do. 

Pray Heaven, the King may never find a heart 

With less allegiance in it ! Men that make 

Envy and crooked malice nourishment 

Dare bite the best. I do beseech your lordships 

That, in this case of justice, my accusers. 

Be what they will, may stand forth face to face, 

And freely urge against me. 

Suf. Nay, my lord, 

That cannot be : you are a counsellor, 
And, by that virtue, no man dare accuse you. 

Gard. My lord, because we've business of more moment, 
We will be short with you. 'Tis his Highness' pleasure, 
And our consent, for better trial of you. 
From hence you be committed to the Tower ; 
Where, being but a private man again. 
You shall know many dare accuse you boldly, 
More than, I fear, you are provided for. 

Craii. Ah, my good Lord of Winchester, I thank you; 
You're always my good friend : if your will pass, 
I shall both find your lordship judge and juror, 
You are so merciful. I see your end ; 
'Tis my undoing. Love and meekness, lord. 
Become a churchman better than ambition : 
Win straying souls with modesty ^ again ; 
Cast none away. That I shall clear myself, 
Lay all the weight ye can upon my patience, 
I make as little doubt, as you do conscience 
In doing daily wrongs. I could say more, 
But reverence to your calling makes me modest. 

8 Modesty in its old sense of moderation ; that is, mildness or gentleness. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 1 63 

Gard. My lord, my lord, you are a sectary, 
That's the plain truth : your painted gloss discovers, 
To men that understand you, words and weakness.^ 

Crom. My Lord of Winchester, you are a little, 
By your good favour, too sharp ; men so noble. 
However faulty, yet should find respect 
For what they have been : 'tis a cruelty / 
To load a falling man. 

Gard. Good master secretary, 

I cry your Honour mercy ; you may, worst 
Of all this table, say so. 

Crom. Why, my lord ? 

Gard. Do not I know you for a favourer 
Of this new sect ? ye are not sound. 

Crom. . Not sound? 

Gard. Not sound, I say. 

Crom. Would you were half so honest ! 

Men's prayers then would seek you, not their fears. 

Gard. I shall remember this bold language. 

Crom. Do. 

Remember your bold life too. 

Chan. This is too much : 

Forbear, for shame, my lords. 

Gard. I've done. 

Crom. And I. 

Chan. Then thus for you, my lord : It stands agreed, 
I take it, by all voices, that forthwith 
You be convey'd to th' Tower a prisoner ; 

9 " Those that understand you discover, beneath ihis fainted gloss or fair 
outside, nothing but empty talk and false reasoning." To gloss or to gloze 
was often used in the sense of to explain away, or to dress up in plausibili- 
ties, See Ki7ig Henry the Fifth, page 46, note 7. 



164 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT V. 

There to remain till the King's further pleasure 
Be known unto us : — are you all agreed, lords ? 

All. We are. 

Cran. Is there no other way of mercy, 

But I must needs to th' Tower, my lords ? 

Gai^d. ' What other 

Would you expect? you're strangely troublesome. — 
Let some o' the guard be ready there ! 

Enter Guard. 

Cran. For me ? 

Must I go like a traitor thither ? 

Gard. Receive him, 

And see him safe i' the Tower. 

Cran, Stay, good my lords, 

I have a little yet to say. Look there, my lords : 
By virtue of that ring I take my cause \_Showing ring. 

Out of the gripes of cruel men, and give it 
To a most noble judge, the King my master. 

Cha7i. This is the King's ring.i^ 

Sur. . 'Tis no counterfeit. 

Suf. 'Tis the right ring, by Heaven ! I told ye all, 
When we first put this dangerous stone a-rolling, 
'Twould fall upon ourselves. 

Nor. Do you think, my lords, 

10 It seems to have been a custom, begun probably before the regal 
power came under legal limitations, for every monarch to have a ring, the 
temporary possession of which invested the holder with the same authority 
as the owner himself could exercise. The production of it was sufficient to 
suspend the execution of the law; it procured indemnity for offences com- 
mitted, and imposed acquiescence and submission to whatever was done 
under its authority. The traditional story of the Earl of Essex, Queen Eliz- 
abeth, and the Countess of Nottingham, long considered as an incident of a 
romance, is generally known, and now as generally credited. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 1 65 

The King will suffer but the little finger 
Of this man to be vex'd ? 

Chan. 'Tis now too certain : 

How much more is his life in value with him ! 
Would I were fairly out on't ! 

Crom. My mind gave me, 

In seeking tales and informations 
Against this man, — whose honesty the Devil 
And his disciples only envy at, — 
Ye blew the fire that burns ye : now have at ye ! 

Enter the King, frowning on them ; he takes his seat. 

'^Gard. Dread sovereign, how much are we bound to 

Heaven 
In daily thanks, that gave us such a prince ! 
Not only good and wise, but most religious ; « 

One that, in all obedience, makes the Church 
The chief aim of his honour ; and, to strengthen 
That holy duty, out of dear respect. 
His royal self in judgment comes to hear 
The cause betwixt her and this great offender. 

King. You were ever good at sudden commendations, 
Bishop of Winchester. But know, I come not 
To hear such flatteries now ; and in my presence 
V They are too thin and bare to hide offences. 
To me, you cannot reach, you play the spaniel,ii 
And think with wagging of your tongue to win me ; 
But, whatsoe'er thou takest me for, I'm sure 
Thou hast a cruel nature and a bloody. — 
\To Cramner.] Good man, sit down. Now let me see the 

proudest, 

11 " To me, whom you cannot reach, you play the spaniel." 



1 66 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT v. 

He that dares most, but wag his finger at thee : 

By all that's holy, he had better starve 

Than but once think this place becomes thee not. 

Sur. May't please your Grace, — 

King. No, sir, it does not please me. 

I had thought I had men of some understanding 
And wisdom of my Council ; but I find none. 
Was it discretion, lords, to let this man. 
This good man, — few of you deserve that title, — 
This honest man, wait like a lousy footboy 
At chamber-door? and one as great as you are? 
Why, what a shame was this ! Did my commission 
Bid ye so far forget yourselves ? I gave ye 
Power as he was a counsellor to try him. 
Not as a groom : there's some of ye, I see, 
More out of malice than integrity. 
Would try him to the utmost, had ye means ; 
Which ye shall ne'er have while I live. 

Chan. Thus far. 

My most dread sovereign, may it like your Grace 
To let my tongue excuse all : What was purposed 
Concerning his imprisonment, was rather — 
If there be faith in men — meant for his trial. 
And fair purgation to the world, than malice ; 
I'm sure, in me. 

King. Well, well, my lords, respect him \ 

Take him, and use him well, he's worthy of it. 
I will say thus much for him : If a prince 
May be beholding to a subject, I 
Am, for his love and service, so to him. ' 
Make me no more ado, but all embrace him : 
Be friends, for shame, my lords ! - — My Lord of Canterbury, 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 16/ 

I have a suit which you must not deny me : 
There is a fair young maid that yet wants baptism ; 
You must be godfather, and answer for her. 

Cran. The greatest monarch now ahve may glory 
In such an honour : how may I deserve it, 
That am a poor and humble subject to you? 

King. Come, come, my lord, you'd spare 'your spoons : ^^ 
you shall have two noble partners with you ; the old Duchess 
of Norfolk, and Lady Marquess Dorset : will these please 
you ? — 

Once more, my Lord of Winchester, I charge you. 
Embrace and love this man. 

Gard. With a true heart 

And brother-love I do it. 

Cran. And let Heaven 

Witness, how dear I hold this confirmation. « 

King. Good man, those joyful tears show thy true heart : 
The common voice, I see, is verified 
Of thee, which says thus. Do my Lord of Canterbicry 
A shrewd turn}"^ and he is your friend for ever. — 
Come, lords, we trifle time away ; I long 

12 It was an ancient custom for the sponsors at christenings to offer silver 
or silver-gilt spoons as a present to the child. The ancient offerings upon 
such occasions were called Apostle-spoons, because the extremity of the han- 
dle was formed into the figure of one or other of the Apostles. Such as 
were opulent and generous gave the whole twelve ; those who were more 
moderately rich or liberal, escaped at the expense of the four Evangelists ; 
or even sometimes contented themselves with presenting one spoon only, 
which exhibited the figure of any saint in honour of whom the child re- 
ceived its name. 

13 "A shrewd \Mxn " is an unkind turn, or a sharp one; such being the 
proper sense ol shrewd. The King has in mind the injunction, "love your 
enemies," and means a delicate compliment to Cranmer as acting in accord- 
ance with that divine precept. 



1 68 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT V. 

To have this, young one made a Christian. 

As I have made ye one, lords, one remain ; 

So I grow stronger, you more honour gain. \_Exeunt. 



Scene III. — The Palace- Yard. 
Noise and tumult within. Enter a Porter and his Man. 

Port. You'll leave your noise anon, ye rascals : do you 
take the Court for Paris-garden ? ^ ye rude slaves, leave your 
gaping.2 

[ Within.'] Good master porter, I belong to the larder. 

Port. Belong to the gallows, and be hang'd, ye rogue ! is 
this a place to roar in? — Fetch me a dozen crab-tree staves, 
and strong ones : these are but switches to 'em. — I'll scratch 
your heads : you must be seeing christenings ! do you look 
for ale and cakes here, you rude rascals ? 

Man. Pray, sir, be patient : 'tis as much impossible — 
Unless we sweep 'em from the door with cannons — 
To scatter 'em, as 'tis to make 'em sleep 
On May-day morning ; ^ which will never be : 
We may as well push against Paul's as stir 'em. 

Port. How got they in, and be hang'd ? 

Man. Alas, I know not ; how gets the tide in ? 

1 This celebrated bear-garden, on the Bankside, was so called from Robert 
de Paris, who had a house and garden there in the time of King Richard II. 
In Shakespeare's time it was noted for tumult and disorder, and was often 
alluded to by the writers of that day, as a place where bears, bulls, and 
horses were baited. 

2 That is, shoutmg or roarijig ; a sense the word has now lost. Littleton, 
in his Dictionary, has " To gape or bawl : vociferor." 

3 Anciently the first of May was observed by all classes of Englishmen as 
a holiday. See A Midsummer, page 30, note 22. 



SCENE III. 



KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 1 69 



As much as one sound cudgel of four foot — 
You see the poor remainder — could distribute, 
I made no spare, sir. 

Port You did nothing, sir. 

Man. I am not Samson, nor Sir Guy, nor Colbrand,^ 
To mow 'em down before me : but if I spared any 
That had a head to hit, either young or old. 
Let me ne'er hope to see a chine again ; 
And that I would not for my cow, God save her ! ^ 

\_Within?^ Do you hear, master porter? 

Port. I shall be with you presently, good master puppy. 
— Keep the door close, sirrah. 

Man. What would you have me do ? 

Port. What should you do, but knock 'em down by the 
dozens? Is this Moorfields to muster in?^ or have we some 
strange Indian come to Court, the women so besiege us? 
Bless me, what a fry is at door ! 

Man. There is a fellow somewhat near the door ; he should 

4 Sir Guy of Warwick and Colbrand the Danish giant were famous char- 
acters in some of the old romances. The story was that Sir Guy subdued 
the giant at Winchester. 

5 That is, " I would not miss seeing a chine again." A chine of beef \s the 
article meant, which seems to have been held in special honour among the 
riches of an English table. So in Peele's play, The Old Wife's Tale : " A 
chine of English Beef, meat for a king." Staunton observes that " the ex- 
pression, ' my cow, God save her!' or ' my mare, God save her!' or 'my 
sow, God bless her ! ' seems to have been proverbial ; thus, in Greene and 
Lodge's Looking- Glass for London, 1598 : ' My blind mare, God bless her ! ' " 
He also shows that the expression " God save her ! " applied to any beast, 
was regarded as a charm against witchcraft. So in Scot's Discovery of 

Witchcraft : " You shall hear a butcher or horse-courser cheapen a bullock 
or a jade, but, if he buy him not, he saith God save him ; if he do forget it, 
and the horse or bullock chance to die, the fault is imputed to the chap- 
man." — See Critical Notes. 

6 The trained bands of the city were exercised in Moorfields. 



I/O KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT V. 

be a brazier''' by his face, for, o' my conscience, twenty of the 
dog-days now reign in's nose : all that stand about him are un- 
der the hne ; ^ they need no other penance. That fire-drake ^ 
did I hit three times on the head, and three times was his nose 
discharged against me : he stands there, like a mortar-piece, 
to blow us. There was a haberdasher's wife of small wit 
near him, that rail'd upon me till her pink'd porringer i^ fell 
off her head, for kindling such a combustion in the State. I 
miss'd the meteoric once, and hit that woman, who cried 
out Clubs \^^ when I might see from far some forty trun- 
cheoners draw to her succour, which were the hope o' the 
Strand, where she was quartered. They fell on ; I made 
good my place : at length they came to the broomstaff with 
me : I defied 'em still ; when suddenly a file of boys behind 
'em, loose shot,!^ deliver'd such a shower of pebbles, that I 

■? A brazier .signifies a man that manufactures brass, and also a reservoir 
for charcoal occasionally heated to convey warmth. Both these senses are 
understood. 

8 Under the equator, where the heat is somewhat. 

^"Fire-drake; a.Jire sometimes seen flying in the night like z. dragon. 
Common people think it a spirit that keepeth some treasure hid ; but philos- 
ophers affirme it to be a great unequal exhalation inflamed betweene two 
clouds, the one hot the other cold, which is the reason that it also smoketh ; 
the middle part whereof, according to the proportion of the hot cloud, being 
greater than the rest, maketh it seeme like a bellie, and both ends like unto 
a head and taile." — Bullokar's Expositor, 1616. K fire-drake appears to 
have been also an artificial firework. 

10 Her pink'd cap, which looked as if it hacj been moulded on a porringer. 
So in the The Taming of the Shrew, iv, 4: 

Hab. Here is the cap your Worship did bespeak. 
Pet. Why, this was moulded on 2. porringer. 

11 The meteor is the brazier aforesaid. 

12 Among the London apprentices, " clubs ! clubs ! " was a common cry 
to the rescue. See As You Like It, page 126, note 4. 

13 That is, loose or random shooters. 



SCENE IV. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. I /I 

was fain to draw mine honour in, and let 'em win the work : ^^ 
the Devil was amongst 'em, I think, surely. 

Port. These are the youths that thunder at a playhouse, 
and fight for bitten apples ; that no audience, but the Tribu- 
lation of Tower-hill, or the Limbs of Limehouse, their dear 
brothers, are able to endure. ^^ I have some of 'em in Limbo 
Patrum}^ and there they are like to dance these three days ; 
besides the running banquet ^'^ of two beadles that is to come. 

Enter the Lord Chamberlain. 

Chain. Mercy o' me, what a multitude are here ! 
They grow still too : from all parts they are coming, 
As if we kept a fair here ! Where are these porters. 
These lazy knaves? — Ye've made a fine hand, fellows; 
There's a trim rabble let in : are all these 
Your faithful friends o' the suburbs ? We shall have 
Great store of room, no doubt, left for the ladies, 
When they pass back from the christening. 

14 The work is ih^ fortress, the place they are besieging or assaulting. 

15 The object-matter of these allusions has been variously disputed, and 
much learned rubbish has been gathered about them. The best explanation, 
it seems to me, is that of Dyce, who regards it as a " fling at the affected 
meekness of the Puritans." He adds, "'The Tribulation of Tower-hill' 
evidently means some particular set or meeting of Puritans, and the ' Limbs 
of Limehouse, their dear brothers,' another set." Limbs of course means 
meinbers. In Ben Jonson's Alchemist, one of the characters is " Tribulation 
Wholesome, a Pastor of Amsterdam." It is well known how cordially the 
Puritans hated plays and theatres. Knight asks, " Is it not that the Puri- 
tans, hating playhouses, approved of the uproar of those who ' fight for 
bitten apples,' because it disturbed those that came to hear ? " 

16 That is, in confinement. In limbo continues to be a cant phrase in the 
same sense to this day. The Limbus Patrum is, properly, the place where 
the old fathers and patriarchs are supposed to be waiting for the resurrec- 
tion. 

i'^ A public whipping. A baiiquet here is used for a dessert. To the con- 
finement of these rioters a whipping was to be the dessert. 



172 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT V. 

Port. An't please your Honour, 

We are but men j and what so many may do, 
Not being torn a-pieces, we have done : 
An army cannot rule 'em. 

Cham. As I live, 

If the King blame me for't, I'll lay ye all 
By th' heels,!'^ and suddenly ; and on your heads 
Clap round fines for neglect : ye 're lazy knaves ; 
And here ye lie baiting of bombards, ^^ when 
Ye should do service. Hark ! the trumpets sound; 
They're come already from the christening. 
Go, break among the press, and find a way out 
To let the troop pass fairly ; or I'll find 
A Marshalsea^^ shall hold ye play these two months. 

Port. Make way there for the Princess ! 

Man. You great fellow, stand close up, or I'll make your 
head ache ! 

Port. You i' the camlet, get up off the rail ; I'll pick 21 you 
o'er the pales else ! \Exeunt. 



Scene IN. — The Palace. 

Enter trumpets, sounding; then two Aldermen, Z(7r^ Mayor, 
Garter, Cranmer, Duke of Norfolk with his MarshaPs 
staff, Duke of Suffolk, two Noblemen bearing great 

18 Lord Campbell tells us that " to lay by the heels was the technical ex- 
pression for committing to prison." See 2 Henry IV., page 70, note 18. 

19 A bombard or bumbard was a large leathern jack for holding liquor. 

20 Marshalsea was the name of one of the prisons in London. 

21 Pick and Peck appear to have been both of them old forms of pitch. 
Thus Baret : " To picke or cast!' And Stubbes in his Anatomy of Abuses : 
" To catch him on the hip, and picke him on his necke." 



SCENE IV. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 1/3 

Standing-bowls ^for the christening-gifts ; then four Noble- 
men bearing a canopy, under which the Duchess of Nor- 
folk, godmother, bearing the Child richly habited in a 
mantle, d^c, train borne by a Lady; then follows the 
Marchioness ^/Dorset, the other Godmother, ^;z^ Ladies. 
The troop pass once about the stage, and Garter speaks, 

Gart. Heaven, from Thy endless goodness, send prosper- 
ous life, long, and ever happy, to the high and mighty Princess 
of England, Elizabeth ! 

Flourish. Enter the King and Train. 

Cran. \_K7ieeling.'\ And for your royal Grace and the 
good Queen, 
My noble partners and myself thus pray : 
All comfort, joy, in this most gracious lady. 
Heaven ever laid up to make parents happy, 
May hourly fall upon ye ! 

King. Thank you, good Lord Archbishop : 

What is her name ? 

Cran. Ehzabeth. 

Xin^. Stand up, lord. — 

[Cranmer rises. — The King kisses the Child. 
With this kiss take my blessing : God protect thee ! 
Into whose hand I give thy life. 

Cran. Amen. 

King. My noble gossips,^ ye have been too prodigal : 
I thank ye heartily ; so shall this lady. 
When she has so much Enghsh. 

1 standing-bowls were bowls elevated on feet or pedestals. 

2 Gossip is an old term for spo?tsor or god-parent. See The Winter's 
Tale, page 76, note 5. 



174 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. ACT V. 

Cran. Let me speak, sir, 

For Heaven now bids me ; and the words I utter 
Let none think flattery, for they'll find 'em truth. 
This royal infant — Heaven still move about her ! — 
Though in her cradle, yet now promises 
Upon this land a thousand thousand blessings. 
Which time shall bring to ripeness. She shall be — 
But few now living can behold that goodness — 
A pattern to all princes living with her. 
And all that shall succeed : Saba ^ was never 
More covetous of wisdom and fair virtue 
Than this pure soul shall be : all princely graces, 
That mould up such a mighty piece as this is. 
With all the virtues that attend the good, 
Shall still be doubled on her : truth shall nurse her, 
Holy and heavenly thoughts still counsel her : 
She shall be. loved and fear'd : her own shall bless her; 
Her foes shake like a field of beaten corn, 
And hang their heads with sorrow : good grows with her. 
In her days every man shall eat in safety. 
Under his own vine, what he plants ; and sing 
The merry songs of peace to all his neighbours : 
God shall be truly known ; and those about her 
From her shall read the perfect ways of honour. 
And by those claim their greatness, not by blood. 
Nor shall this peace sleep with her : but, as when 
The bird of wonder dies, the maiden phoenix, 
Her ashes new create another heir. 
As great in admiration as herself; 

3 So the name of Solomon's queen-pupil is spelt both in the Septuagint 
and the vulgate ; such too is the old English form of it ; though some have 
changed it here to Sheba, as it is in our authorized version. 



SCENE IV. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 1/5 

So shall she leave her blessedness to one, 

When Heaven shall call her from this cloud of darkness, 

Who from the sacred ashes of her honour 

Shall star-like rise, as great in fame as she was. 

And so stand fix'd : peace, plenty, love, truth, terror, 

That were the servants to this chosen infant. 

Shall than be his, and like a vine grow to him : 

Wherever the bright Sun of heaven shall shine, 

His honour and the greatness of his name 

Shall be, and make new nations : ^ he shall flourish. 

And, like a mountain cedar, reach his branches 

To all the plains about him.^ Our children's children 

Shall see this, and bless Heaven. 

King. Thou speakest wonders. 

Cran. She shall be, to the happiness of England, 
An aged princess ; many days shall see her, ' 

And yet no day without a deed to crown it. 
Would I had known no more ! but she must die ; 
She must, the saints must have her : yet a virgin, 
A most unspotted lily, shall she pass 
To th' ground, and all the world shall mourn her. 

Kmg, O Lord Archbishop, 
Thou hast made me now a man ! never before 
This happy child did I get any thing. 

4 On a picture of King James, which formerly belonged to Bacon, and is 
now in the possession of Lord Grimston, he is styled Imperii Atlantici Con- 
ditor. In 1612 there was a lottery for the plantation of Virginia. The lines 
probably allude to the settlement of that colony. 

5 Alluding, most likely, to the marriage of the King's daughter Elizabeth 
with the Elector Palatine, which took place in February, 1613. The mar- 
riage was a theme of intense joy and high anticipations to the English people, 
as it seemed to knit them up with the Protestant interest of Germany. The 
present royal family of England comes from that marriage. 



1/6 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. EPILOGUE. 

This oracle of comfort has so pleased me, 

That when I am in Heaven I shall desire 

To see what this child does, and praise my Maker. — 

I thank ye all. — To you, my good Lord Mayor, 

And your good brethren, I am much beholding : 

I have received much honour by your presence, 

And ye shall find me thankful. — Lead the way, lords : 

Ye must all see the Queen, and she must thank ye ; 

She will be sick else. This day no man think 

'Has business at his house ; for all shall stay : 

This little one shall make it hoHday. \Exeunt. 



EPILOGUE. 

'Tis ten to one this play can never please 
All that are here. Some come to take their ease, 
And sleep an Act or two ; but those, we fear. 
We've frighted with our trumpets ; so, 'tis clear, 
They'll say 'tis naught : others, to hear the city 
Abused extremely, and to cry, That's witty ! 
Which we have not done neither : that, I fear. 
All the expected good we're like to hear 
For this play at this time, is only in 
The merciful construction of good women ; 
For such a one we show'd 'em. If they smile, 
And say 'twill do, I know, within a while 
All the best men are ours ; for 'tis ill hap. 
If they hold when their ladies bid 'em clap. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 



Prologue. 



Page 41. Sad, high, and working, /?<!// of state and tvoe. — Staunton 
prints " Sad and high-working'' ; and so I suspect we ought to read. 

P. 42. To rank otir chosen truth with such a show 

As Fool and fight is, besides forfeiting 

Our own brains, and th' opinion that zve bring 

Or uiake, — that only truth we now intend, — 

Will leave us ne'er an understanding friend. — So Johnson. 
The original has the fourth hne thus : " To make that only true we 
now intend." Out of this reading it is exceedingly difficult to get any 
fitting sense, or indeed any sense at all. — "This is not the only pas- 
sage," says Johnson, " in which Shakespeare has discovered his con- 
viction of the impropriety of battles represented on the stage. He 
knew that five or six men, with swords, gave a very unsatisfactory idea 
of an army ; and therefore, without much care to excuse his former 
practice, he allows that a theatrical fight would destroy all opinion of 
truth, and leave him never an understanding friend." The Prologue, 
partly on the strength of this passage, has been by some ascribed to 
Ben Jonson. It certainly accords well with what he says in the pro- 
logue to Every Man in his Hu7nour : 

To make a child, now swaddled, to proceed 
Man, and then shoot up, in one beard and weed. 
Past threescore years ; or, -with three rusty swords. 
And help of some few foot and half foot words. 
Fight over York and Lancaster's long jars, 
And in the tyri7ig-house bring wo2inds to scars. 

P. 42. Be sad, as we would fnake ye : think ye see 
The very persotis of our history 

As they were living; &c. — The original reads "persons of our 
noble story r Upon this Heath comments as follows : " The failure in 



1^8 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 

the rhyme evidently shows that the text is corrupt. I think that Shake- 
speare probably wrote ' the very persons of our history.^ The epithet 
noble is one of those the Italians call epithets to let. It is perfectly 
unnecessary, and may be rejected without the least detriment either to 
the sense or to the elegance of the passage." The reading thus proposed 
by Heath was adopted by Capell. 

P. 43. Think you see them great, 

And follow' d with the general throng and sweat 
Of thousand friejtds. — Mr. P. A. Daniel suggests that we ought 
to read " the general throng and suiteP 



Act I., Scene i. 

P. 44. Each following day 

Became the last dafs master, till the next 

Made former tvonders its. — The original transposes the words 
last and next. The speaker evidently means that each later day seemed 
to surpass the preceding ; but this meaning cannot be got out of the 
old order, except by taking the next as equivalent to the next before, — 
a sense which it can hardly bear. The reading in the text was conjec- 
tured by Theobald, approved by Heath, and adopted by Capell. 

P. 46. The tract of every thing 

Would by a good discourser lose some life, 

Which action'' s self was tongue to. All was royal; &c. — In 
the original the words All was royal, and the three following lines of 
Norfolk's speech, are printed as a part of the next speech. This is pal- 
pably wrong, as it makes Buckingham break in, and complete the 
description of things which he avowedly had not seen. Corrected by 
Theobald. 

P. 46. / mean, who set the body and the limbs 
Of this great sport together, as you guess? 

Nor. One, certes, that promises no element 
In such a business. — So Theobald. The original makes the 
words as you guess the beginning of Norfolk's speech. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 



179 



P. 47* But, spider-like, 

Out ofs self-drawing web, hegiT/es us note 

The force of his own merit makes his way ; 

A gift that Heaven gives; which buys for him 

A place next to the King. — In the second of these lines, the 
original has "O gives us note." Shakespeare probably wrote "a gives 
us note," and so I suspect we ought to print ; as a or 'a was a common 
colloquialism for he. But perhaps the matter is not of moment enough 
to warrant a variation from the reading generally received. — In the 
fourth line, also, the original reads " A gift that heaven gives for him, 
which buyes," &c. The correction is Warburton's, and has the unquali- 
fied approval of Walker. 

P. 50. This butcher's cur 'is yenom-mouth'd. — The original has 
" venom' d-month'd." An instance, no doubt, of final d and final e con- 
founded, the Poet having written venoine. Such instances are very 
frequent. 

P. 52. That swallowed so much treasure, and like a glass » 

Did break V the rinsing. — The original has wrenching instead 
of rinsing. It appears that various vi^ords now beginning with r were 
formerly written with wr ; and zm'insing might easily have been mis- 
printed wrenching. 

P- 53- Btit our CoviXi- Cardinal 

Has done this, and 'tis well. — So Pope and Lettsom. The 
original has "C(?zm/-Cardinal." Wolsey is indeed afterwards spoken 
of as "iTzVz^-Cardinal," but that I think does nothing towards approv- 
ing the use of Count here, which is far from being strong enough for 
the occasion. 

P- 53- For frofji this league 

Peep'd harms that menaced him : he privily 
Deals with oiir Cardinal. — So the second folio. The first 
omits he ; doubtless by accident, as both sense and metre require it. 

P- 53' Btit, when the way was made. 

And paved with gold, the Emperor then desired 
That he would please to alter the King's course, 8z.c. — The old 
text has " the Emperor thus desir'd." The correction is Walker's. 



l80 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 

P. 55. And Gilbert Peck, his chancellor. — The original has "One 
Gilbert Pecke, his C ounce Hour. ''^ Chancellor is Theobald's correction, 
the same person being afterwards designated by that title. The other 
change, of One to And, was also proposed by Theobald, and adopted 
by Pope. As final d was formerly written, it was very apt to be con- 
founded with e. The confusion of A and O was also frequent. 

P. 55. C, Nicholas Hopkins? — Here the original has " Michael' 
Hopkins." In the next scene, however, the same person is rightly 
called Nicholas. This, also, was corrected by Theobald. 

P. 55. I afn thjS shadow of poor Buckingham, 

Whose figure even this instant cloud ptiis out, 

By darkening my clear sun. — My lord, fareivell. — The origi- 
nal reads " This instant Clowd puts <?;z." We have repeated instances 
of on and otit misprinted for each other. The substitution of out for on 
in this place was proposed by Theobald ; and I fail to appreciate the 
difficulty which some editors find in that reading. — In the last line, 
also, the original has Lords instead of lord. But Buckingham is there 
speaking to Norfolk only, as Abergavenny is going with him to the 
Tower. Corrected by Rowe. 

Act I., Scene 2, 

P. 57. There have been co7iimissions 

Sent down among ''em, which have flawed the heart 
Of all their loyalties. — The old text reads " which hath flaw'd." 
As which clearly refers to commissions, the propriety of the change is 
evident. Corrected in the fourth folio. 

P. 57. Language unmannerly, yea, such which breaks 

The sides of loyalty. — Collier's second folio reads, plausibly, 
"The /?>j of loyalty." But the meaning is the same here as a litde 
before, "which have flaw''d the heart. ^'' So in King Lear, ii. 4: " O 
sides, you are too tough ! will you yet hold ? " 

P. 58. Tongues spit their duties out, and cold hearts freeze 
Allegiance in them ; that their curses now 
Live where their prayers did : and ifs come to pass 



CRITICAL NOTES. l8l 

That tractable obedience is a slave, &c. — In the second of 
these lines, that is wanting in the original, and is inserted by Walker 
as needful alike to sense and to metre. Of course it is equivalent to 
so that, or insomuch that. — In the last line, also, the original has 
This instead of That. Corrected by Rowe. 

P. 59. There is no primer business. — The original has basenesse 
instead of business ; a misprint so glaring as to be hardly worth noting. 

P. 59. What zue oft do best 

By sick interpreters, or weak ones, is 

Not ours, or not allow'' d. — The original reads " once weake 
ones." The correction is Pope's. I cannot reconcile my mind to the 
use of once here ; an alternative sense being, it seems to me, clearly 
intended and required. The forms oi once and ones are so much alike, 
both to the eye and to the ear, that I suspect the error originated in 
that circumstance. 

« 
P. 59. For our best action. If we shall stand still, &c. — Instead 
of action, the old text has Act. Corrected by Capell. 

P. 60. A trembhng contribution ! — Collier's second folio substi- 
tutes trebling for trembling. The latter goes rather hard indeed, but 
trebling seems quite too tame and flat. See foot-note 8. 

P- 61. And when we. 

Almost with listening ravish'd, could not find 
His hour of speech a minute. — So Staunton. The old text has 
"Almost with ravish'd listeiziitz" 

o 

P- 61. Please your Highness, note 

His dangerous conception in this point. — The original has This 
instead of His. The two were often misprinted for each other. Cor- 
rected by Pope. 

P- 62, He was brought to this 

By a vaijt prophecy of Nicholas Hopkins. — Here, and also in 
the next speech, the original has Henton instead of Hopkins. But the 



1 82 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 

same man has before been called Hopkins, and it is not easy to see 
why the name should be thus varied. Henton, however, was the name 
of the convent to which he belonged. The correction is Theobald's. 

P. 63. W/iofn after, under the confession's seal, 

He solemnly had sworn, &c. — The original has " under the 
Commissions scale." Corrected by Theobald from Holinshed. 

P. 63. Bid him strive 

'To gain the love 0^ the commonalty. — The word gain is wanting 
in the old editions till the fourth folio. Some verb of equivalent mean- 
ing is evidently required. 

P. 63. The monk might be deceived ; and that Hwas dangerous 
For him to ruminate on this so far, until 

It forged him some design, &c. —The original has " For this to 
ruminate on this," a palpable error, which Rowe corrected. — As we 
have here two Alexandrines together, Lettsom proposed to read " For 
him to ruminate this so far," and thus reduce one of them to a pen- 
tameter. 

P. 64. / remember 

Of such time : being my servant sworn, 

The duke retain'' d him his. — The old text reads " being my 
sworn servanf'' ; which seems a needless untuning of the rhythm. 
Corrected by Steevens. 

P. 64. If, quoth he, I for this had been committed 

To th' Toiuer, as I thought, I would have play'd, &c. — So 
Hanmer. The original reads " As to the Tower, I thought " ; &c. 
Here we have a very awkward inversion, which serves no purpose but 
to obscure the sense. 

Act I., Scene 3. 

P. 65. They''ve all new legs, and lame ones : one would take it, 
That never, saw ^em pace before, the spavin 
Or springhalt reign' d ai7iong ''em. — So Verplanck and Collier's 



CRITICAL NOTES. 1 83 

second folio. The old text has "the Spaven ^ Springhalt." As the 
spavin and the springhalt, or stringhalt, are two very different diseases 
of horses, it appears nowise likely that the author of this scene would 
have confounded them, either name or thing. Pope reads '^ And 
springhalt." 



P. 67. They may, cum privilegio, wee away 

The lag end of their lewdness. — So the original. The second 
folio substitutes wear for wee, and is followed, I believe, by all modern 
editions. But wee was probably meant as expressing in English the 
sound of the French oui, and as a sort of representative word. This 
puts wee in good keeping with the rest of the speech ; meaning, of 
course, that " our travell'd gallants " were carrying their foreign affecta- 
tion into their speech, as well as into their dress and manners. — This 
reading and explanation were suggested to me by Mr. Joseph Crosby. 



Act I., Scene 4. 

P. 69. He would have all as merry 

As feast, good company, good wine, good welcome. 
Can m.ake good people. — The original reads " As first, good 
company, &c. Theobald reads " A% first-good,''^ Dyce, "As far as 
good," both of which are to me quite unsatisfactory. The correction in 
the text is Staunton's, and fits so well, that I can but wonder it was not 
hit upon before. 

P. 71. Anne. You^re a merry gamester. 

My Lord Sands. 

Sands. Yes, if I may make my play. — The old text 

reads " if I make my play," omitting may, and thus defeating the verse. 
Hanmer inserted it. 



P. 72. Because they speak no English, thus they prayed me 

To tell your Grace, &c. — So Walker, and Collier's second 
folio. The original omits m-e. 



184 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 



Act II., Scene i. 

P. 75. Of divers witnesses ; which the duke desired 

To have br otight, y'iyq. voce, to his face. — The original prints 
" To him brought." Not worth noting, perhaps. 

P. 78. If ever any malice in your heart 

Were hid against me^ now forgive me frankly. — The original 
has " now to forgive me." Pope's correction. 

P. 78. There cannot be those numberless offences 

' Gainst me that I cannot take peace zuith : no black envy 
Shall mark my grave. — In the last of these lines, the original 
has make instead of 7?iark ; an easy misprint, which Warburton cor- 
rected. 

P. 79- ^y vows and prayers 

Yet are the King's ; and, till my soul forsake me. 
Shall cry for blessings on him. — Here, again, me is wanting in 
the original. Added in the fourth folio. 



Act II., Scene 2. 

P. 84. All that dare 

Look into these affairs see his main end, — 

The French King's sister. — So the fourth folio. The earlier 
editions have "see this main end." The speaker is evidently referring 
to Wolsey. 

Act II., Scene 3, 

P. 89. Still growing in majesty and pomp, the which 
To leave's a thousand-fold 77iore bitter than 

' Tis sweet at first f acquire. — In the first of these lines, the 
original has "growing in a. majesty," — one of the many instances, 
which Walker points out, of a interpolated. Also, in the second line, 
the original prints " To leave, a thousand-fold," &c. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 185 

P. 89. Yet, if that fortune's quarrel do divorce 

Itfroju the bearer, &c. — I here adopt the reading proposed by 
Lettsom. The original reads " if that quarrell. Fortune, do divorce," 
&c.; which has been a standing puzzle to the editors, from Warburton 
down to the present time. Many changes have been proposed, and 
divers explanations offered, none of which comes near being generally 
acceptable. Dyce follows Warburton's reading, " if that quarrel, for- 
tune, do," &c.; upon the supposal that quarrel vn^cj be used for arrow. 
The word was indeed sometimes used in that sense : but, if we should 
substitute at^row, I cannot see how the passage would be any the 
clearer, or the sense any more apt. As here given the meaning is both 
clear and apt enough ; and we have but to take if that as an instance 
of the old English idiom which occurs so often in these plays, such as 
since that, when that, thotigh that, &c., in all which that, according to 
the modern idiom, is simply redundant. Collier's second folio changes 
quarrel to cruel; which relieves the passage of difficulty indeed, but 
makes it quite too tame. On the other hand, the old editions of Shake- 
speare abound in instances of words unquestionably transposed. 

P. 92. The King's Majesty 

Commends his good opinion to you, and 

Does purpose honour to you no less flozving, &c. — So Pope. 
The original reads "Commends his good opinion of you to you," &c. 

P. 93. And you, O fate ! 

A very fresh-fish here, — fie, fie upon ' 

This compeW d fortune ! — have your mouth fiWd up 
Before you open''t. — The original has " fye, fye, fye upon," &c. 
The \hixd.fie obviously serves no purpose but to defeat the metre. 



Act II., Scene 4. 

96. When zuas the hour 

I ever contradicted your desire. 
Or made it not mine too ? Which of your friends 
Have I not strove to love, although I knew 
He were mine ertemy ? what friend of mine. 



1 86 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 

That had to him derived your anger, did I 

Continue in my liking? nay, gave not notice 

He was from thence discharged ? — In the third of these lines 
the original repeats Or before Which ; doubtless by accident. Also, in 
the seventh line, the original omits not. The same letters occurring 
again in notice probably caused the omission : at all events, not seems 
fairly required both for sense and metre. Hanmer inserted it. 

P. 97. It shall be therefore bootless 

That longer you defer the court. — So the fourth folio; The 
earlier -editions have " (/iS'^zy^' the Court"; doubtless a misprint iox de- 
ferre. 

P. 98. / was about to weep ; but, thinking that 

We are a queen, — or long have dreamed so, — certain 
The daughter of a king, j?iy drops of tears 

IHl turn to sparks of jire. — The original has " I am about to 
weep." It occurred to me long- ago that we ought to read was ; and 
the same has lately been proposed by Mr. P. A. Daniel. 

P. 99. Yea, as •rnuch 

As you have done tny trtith. But, if he knotv 
That I am free of your report, &c. — So Pope. The original 
omits But, which is needful alike for metre and for sense. 

P. 99. You have, by fortune, and his Highness'' favours. 
Gone slightly o''er low steps, and now are mounted 
Where powers are your retainers ; and your words, 
Domestics to you, serve your zvill as'' t please 
Yourself pronounce their office. — In the first and second of 
these lines, I find it not easy to refrain from adopting the changes, sug- 
gested by Walker, of favours to favour, and of slightly to lightly. In 
the third line, Tyrwhitt and Singer think we ought to read wards in- 
stead of words. With that reading, the sense would be, " that the great 
and powerful were among Wolsey's retainers, and that his wards, gen- 
erally young nobility, were placed in domestic .offices about his person, 



CRITICAL NOTES. 1 8/ 

to swell his state and retinue ; which was the fact, and was made one 
of the principal charges against him." Possibly this may. be right, and, 
if so, must be owned to be a rather happy instance of turning a fine 
poetic image into a sort of hard literality. But the Queen dwells much 
upon Wolsey's recklessness of truth ; she does not at all credit his dis- 
claimer of being at the bottom of this movement : and would it not 
accord better with her settled distrust of his word, to understand her 
as intimating here, that in his high-seated arrogance his thought and 
speech have outgrown the wholesome restraints of fear ? See foot- 
note 9. 

P. 100. When you are caWd, return. — Now, the Lord help me ; 

They vex me past my patience ! — So Walker. The original 
lacks me in the first line, just as in two cases before. 

P. 102. Who had been hither sent on the debating 

A marriage, &c. — The original has "^;z<a^ marriage." 

P. 102. This respite shook 

The bottom oj my conscience, enter'' d me. 

Yea, with a splitting power, &c. — Instead of bottom and split- 
ting, the original has bosome and spitting. The former was corrected 
by Thirlby from the corresponding passage of Holinshed j the latter, 
in the second foHo. 

Act III., Scene i. 

P. 107. If your business 

Do seek me out, and that way I am wife in, 
Out with it boldly : truth loves open dealing. — The original 
lacks Do, which was inserted by Pope. — Rowe changed wife to wise, 
and has been followed by various editors, Dyce among others, who 
also gives Mason's explanation, — " relates to me, or to any thing of 
which I have any knowledge." I was myself once betrayed into a 
reluctant adoption of that reading ; but it now seems to me quite in- 
compatible with the next line, which shows that Catharine is referring 
to the question of her divorce. See foot-note 7. 



l88 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 

P. 107. Pm sorry my integrity should breed 

So deep suspicion, where all faith was meant, 

And service to his Majesty and you. — In the original the sec- 
ond and third of these Hnes are transposed. This misplacement, for 
such I deem it, was rectified by Edwards. 

P. 108. , And to deliver. 

Like .free and honest men, our just opinions 

And comforts to your cause. — So the second folio. The first 
has our instead of your, — doubtless an accidental repetition from the 
line above. 

P. 112. The King loves you ; 

Beware you lose it not : for tis, if please you 
To trust tis in your business, &c. — The original reads "if you 
please,^'' — an accidental misplacement, which Walker and prosody cor- 
rect. 

Act III., Scene 2. 

P. 114. The CardinaVs letter to the Pope miscarried. — The origi- 
nal has Letters instead of letter. But Surrey asks, a little after, " will 
the King digest this letter of the Cardinal's ? " 

P. 114. Now, all joy 

Trace the conjunctiojz I — So Pope and Walker. The original 
has "Now all ;/zy joy." Both White and Dyce retain the old reading, 
and in confirmation of it quote from Beaumont and Fletcher's Coxcomb, 
iv. 4 : " Now all my blessing on thee ! thou hast made me younger by 
twenty years." But can the two cases be fairly regarded as parallel ? 
I doubt it. For blessing is an act passing over upon an object; joy is a 
feeling. In other words, we speak of conferring our blessing on 
another, but not of conferring our joy. Colher's second folio reads 
"Now may all joy." But I prefer Walker's reading ; who justly sup- 
poses that my crept in here by accident from the next line. 

P. 116. Look'' d he 0' the inside of the papers ? 

Crom. Presently 

He did unseal them : and the first he viewed. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 1 89 

He did it with a serious mind ; a heed 

Was in his countenatice. And ^/ou he bade 

Attend him here this morning. — In the first of these lines, the 
original has " inside of the Paper ^ But the next line shows that it 
should be papers. Also, in the fourth line, the original lacks And, 
which was inserted by Hanmer. 

P. 117. There is more in it than fair visage. Boleyn ! 

N'o, weUl no Boleyns. — The original reads " There'' s more inH 
then faire Visage." Walker would complete the verse by repeating 
Boleyn ; and Hanmer printed " There's more in it than a fair visage." 
But the printing of is and it in full appears to be the simplest way. 

P. 118. Strikes his breast hard ; and then anon he casts 

His eye against the Moon. — The original lacks then, which was 
inserted by Rowe. 

P. 119. If we did think 

His contemplation were above the Earth, 

And fix'' d on spiritual objects, he should still, &c. — The old 
editions till the fourth folio have object instead of objects. Walker says, 
"Objects, surely; unless, indeed, object had then some meaning with 
which we are not now acquainted." 

P. 120. My endeavours 

Have ever come too short of iny desires, 

Yet filed with my abilities. — The original hdisfilPd instead of 
filed. Dyce says, "The misprint oi fiWd ioxfiPd is a common one." 
See foot-note 14. 

P. 121. I do profess 

That for your Highness'' good I ever labour'' d 
More than mine own ; that I am- true, and will be. 
Though all the world should crack their duty to you, &c. — The 
original here presents a piece of obscurity that long baffled the inge- 
nuity of the commentators, thus : 

I do professe, 
That for your Highnesse good, I ever labour'd 
More then mine owne : that am, have, and will be 
(Though all the world should cracke their duty, &c. 



IQO KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 

The critics have generally agreed that there must be some corruption 
here. The happy emendation in the text is from Singer. Walker 
thinks a line may have been lost, somewhat to the following effect : 

that I am, have, and will be, 

In heart and act, tied to your service ; yea, 

Though all the world should, &c. 

A very note-worthy specimen of conjectural emendation. And Shake- 
speare has many instances of language thus incomplete ; " that I am, 
have, and will be," for have been. Of course, however, it would not 
do to use such freedom with the Poet's text, nor would Walker himself 
approve" the doing so. 

P. 123. How eagerly ye follow 7iiy disgrace, 

As if it fed ye ! — The original has disgraces, — a misprint 
which it in the next clause readily corrects. 

P. 125. That in the zvay of loyalty and truth 

Toward the King, my ever royal master, I 

Dare mate a sounder man than Surrey can be, &c. — The 
original is without the pronoun / at the end of the second line, and 
thus leaves the clause without a subject, Theobald inserted the pro- 
noun in the first line, — " That / in the way," &c. But this mars, not 
to say defeats, the rhythm of that hne. And Shakespeare intersperses 
Alexandrines so freely, that we need not scruple to make the second 
line a verse of that length. 

P. 128. That, out of mere ambitioit, you have caused 

Your holy hat be stamfd on the King^s coin. — So Pope. The 
original reads " Your holy-Hat to be stampt," Here to is doubtless an 
interpolation, as the Poet often omits it in like cases, where it would 
disorder his rhythm. 

P. 128. Because all those things you have dojte of late. 

By your power legatine, &c. — The original has legative instead 
of legatiite. 

P. 128. To forfeit all yotir goods, laitds, tenements, 

Chattels, and whatsoever, &c. — The original misprints Castles 
for Chattels. Corrected by Theobald. 



CRITICAL NOTES. IQI 

P. 129. This is the state of man : To-day he puts forth 

The tender leaves of hope. — The old text has hopes instead of 
hope. The instances of plurals and singulars misprinted for each other 
are almost numberless. 

P. 129. 6>, how wretched 

Is that poor man that hangs on princes'' favours ! 
There is, betwixt that senile we wotdd aspire to, 
kThat sweet aspect of princes, and their rtcin, &c. — It has been 
proposed to change their to our, thus making it refer to we, in the pre- 
ceding line ; also, to change %ue to he, and their to his, both referring 
to that poor 7nan. But such changes are hardly admissible, as we have 
many instances of like usage. See foot-note 32. 

P. 131. May have a tomb of orphans'" tears wept on 'em! — The 
original has him instead of ""em, — a frequent misprint. As the pro- 
noun must refer to bones, him cannot be right. Corrected by Capell, 

* 

Act IV., Scene i, 

P. 134. The citizens, 

I^m sure, have show7z at full their loyal minds. — So Pope. 
The old text has " their royal minds." The word royal may, indeed, 
possibly be explained to a fitting sense, as the Poet several times uses 
it, not in the sense of kingly, but to denote that which has a king for 
its object ; but that sense comes so hard in this case, and the misprint of 
royal for loyal is so easy, that I see not why the slight change should be 
scrupled. 

P. 135. She was oft cited by them, btit appear'' d not. — The original 
has often instead oioft; a needless breach of metre, and doubtless 
accidental. Corrected by Hanmer. 

P. 135. Since which she was removed to l^miboXion. — The original 
has K'ymmalton, — an error which the history readily corrects. 

P. 136. A bold brave gentleman. That \oxd shotild be 

The Duke of Suffolk. — So Walker. The old text omits lord. 



192 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 

P. 137. I Gent, And sometimes falling ones. 

2 Gent. No more of that. — In 

the original, the first of these speeches is printed as a part of the second 
Gentleman's preceding speech. As the next speech is also there as- 
signed to the second Gentleman, this makes him reply to his own 
remark. The correction is Walker's. 

P. 139. To York-place, where the feast is held. 

I Gent. Sir, you * 

Must no more call it York-place, that is past. — The old text 
sets yott at the beginning of the next line, and then, to give that line a 
semblance of regularity, prints " thafs past." I say semblance, for the 
ictus falls on the wrong syllables throughout the line. 

P. 140. Come, gentlemen, ye shall go my way, which 

Is to the Cottrt, and there shall be my guests. — The original 
reads " and there ye shall be." Doubtless an accidental repetition of 
ye from the line above. Pope's correction. 

Act IV., Scene 2. 

P. 140. Yes, madam ; but I thought your Grace, 

■ Out of the pain you suffer'' d, gave no ear to it. — So Lettsom. 
Instead of thought, the original has thanke, which the second folio 
changes to think. 

P. 142. One that by suggestion 

Tithed all the kingdom. — So Hanmer. The original has Tfde 
instead of Tithed. Some editors print Tied, and suppose the meaning 
to be, that Wolsey had suggested the nation into bondage, — hinted 
away the liberties of England. Plis general course and history make 
rather for the sense of tithed ; for he was not specially tyrannical, save 
as tyranny would purvey to his rapacity. See foot-note 6. 

P. 142. But his performance, as he now is, nothing. — The original 
transposes now and is, thus making an ugly hitch in the metre. Rowe's 
correction. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 193 

P. 145. Hotv long her face is drazvn ? how pale she looks, 

And cf an earthy colour? — So Dyce and Walker. Instead of 
colotcr, the original has cold, v/hich Collier's second folio changes to 
coldness. 

P, 147. The last is, for my men ; — they are o' the poorest, &c. — 
So Walker. The old text reads " they are the poorest." 

P. 147. If Heaven had pleased f have given me longer life 

And abler means, zue had not parted thus. — The original has 
" And able means." Corrected by Walker. 

P. 148. Say to him his long trozible now is passing 

Out of this zuorld. — The words to him are wanting in the orig- 
inal, thus leaving the verse badly mutilated. Pope repaired the breach 
thus : ''And tell hiin, his long trouble nov/ is passing." Capell, thus : 
"Say, his long trouble nov/ is passing _/;'^;;z him.'''' The reading in the 

text is Keightley's. 

« 

Act v., Scene i. 

P. 155. And f have heard yoti. 

Without indurance, fttrther. — Upon this passage Mr. P. A. 
Daniel notes as follows : " Read, in last line, ' While out of dtirance, 
further.' The object of the Council being to imprison Cranmer before 
calling witnesses against him, the King naturally supposes that the 
Archbishop would desire to be heard while enjoying the advantages of 
liberty — while out of durance P . 

P. 156. Yott take a precipice y^r iio leap of danger ^ 

And \ioo your ozu7t destrttction. — So the second folio. The 
first has Precepit and woe instead oi precipice and zooo. 

Act v., Scene 2, 

P. 160. Please your Honours, 

The chief cazise concerns his Grace of Cajzterbury. — An un- 
metrical line, v/here such a line ought not to be, and one not easy to 
be set right. Lettsom would read ^cerns. I suspect we should rather 



194 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH., 

strike out chief ; for, though Gardiner says "we've business of more 
moment," it appears in fact, that they have no other business in hand 
as a Council. 

P. 1 60. In our own natures frail, and cdi^ohle 

Of our flesh ; fezv are angels : &c. — Several changes have been 
made or proposed in this difficult passage. Theobald proposed culpa- 
ble, vi'hich is also found in Collier's second folio. Malone printed thus : 
" In our own natures frail, iitcapable ; Of our flesh, few are angels," 
But neither of these changes has met with much favour. I do not 
think the text is corrupt. See foot-note 6. 

P. 162, Defacers of \}lvq. public peace. — So Rowe and Collier's sec- 
ond folio. The original has " Defacers of a publique peace," 

P. 165. But knoiv, I come not 

To hear such flatteries now ; and in my presence 
They are too thin and bare to hide offences. — The original has 
flattery and base instead oi flatteries and bare. The first was corrected 
by Rowe, the second by Malone. They points out the error oi flattery. 

P, 166, I had thought I had men of so7ne understanding 

And wisdom of my Council; btit I find none. — The original 
has the first of these lines rather overloaded with hads, thus : " I had 
thought I had had men," &c. This needless repetition damages both 
sense and metre. Probably it were better to strike out another had, 
and read " I thought I had." So in the corresponding passage of Fox: 
*' Ah my lords, I thought I had wiser men of my councell than now I 
find you,*' 

P. 167. I have a suit zvhich you must not deny me : 

There is a fair young maid that yet wants baptism. — The 
original has That instead of There. Corrected by Rowe. 

Act V,, Scene 3, 

P. 168. Do yozi take the Court for Va.vis-garden ? — The original has 
'^Parish Garden." There was no such place as Parish Garden, but 
Paris-gQ.xdiQn was a well-known arena for bear-baitings. White, and 



CRITICAL NOTES. I95 

Dyce in his last edition, print "jP«rzV^-garden," on the ground of its 
being " a vulgar corruption," used " by people of the Porter's class." 
Parish seems to me much more likely to have been an accidental error. 
Corrected in the fourth folio. 

P. 169. Let me ne''er hope to see a chine again ; 

And that I would not for my cow, God save her. — The origi- 
nal has " for a cow." The substitution of my for a was proposed by 
Staunton, and sets the language in accordance with an old custom of 
speech. See foot-note 5. — Few passages in Shakespeare have puzzled 
the commentators more than this. Collier's second folio substitutes 
queen for chine, and crown for cow. These changes are plausible ; but 
they labour under the mistake of supposing that the speaker is expect- 
ing to see the Queen pass to the christening ; which could hardly be, 
as the custom then was to baptize babies at three days old ; which cus- 
tom was in fact followed at the baptism of Elizabeth. So Singer, 
Staunton, White, and Dyce all keep the original text, in spite of Col- 
lier's discovery. And a writer in The Literary Gazette for January 25, 
1862, remarks as follows: "A phrase evidently identical with that used 
by Shakespeare (or Fletcher) is in use to this day in the South of Eng- 
land. ' Oh ! I would not do that for a cow, save her tail,' may still be 
heard in the mouths of the vulgar in Devonshire. This coincidence of 
expression leaves no doubt that the genuine reading is coiv, not crown ; 
and that the Porter's man was thinking of a chine of beef, an object 
much dearer in his eyes than a queen." 

P. 170. At length they ca77ie to the broomstaff \y\\h me. — So Pope 
and Collier's second folio. The original has "the broome staffe to me." 
Doubtless an accidental repetition of to. 

P. 172. Yozi € the camlet, get up off the rail ; LHl pick yoti o'er the 
pales else. — So Mason. The original has "get up d" the raile." Col- 
lier's second folio changes pales to poll. This would give a different 
sense, /o// being an old word for head. See foot-note 21. 

Act v., Scene 4. 

P. 173. And iox your royal Grace and the good Queen, 

My noble partners and myself thus pray. — The old text reads 



196 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 

"And to your Royall Grace." As the prayer is addressed to Heaven, 
to obviously cannot be right, according to any known usage. 

P. 174. From her shall read the perfect ways of honour. — So the 
fourth foho. The original has %uay instead of ways. 

P. 1 76. To you, my good Lord Mayor, 

And your good brethren, &c. — The original has " And you good 
brethren." Corrected by Thirlby. 



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